Livestock

2024
acrylic on canvas
61 x 91cm
Livestock is a piece created by Grace Naveikata that explores how the introduction of farming by British invaders deeply impacted and reinforced the dispossession of Aboriginal Australian communities. She’s done this through using a contemporary take on the portrait, using the head of a sheep instead of a person. After the invasion of Australia in 1788, colonialists began using stolen land to farm and produce livestock, leading to the continued dispossession of Aboriginal people from their land and the desecrating of natural resources that had existed for centuries prior. The sheep’s head depicted in the centre of the piece is painted to resemble a mugshot, representative of criminal injustices that lead to Indigenous dispossession. This work aims to draw recognition to an element of Australia’s dark colonial past and encourages the audience to understand and reflect on this.