Robert Campbell Jnr

Ngaku and Dhungatti peoples. Born 1944, Kempsey, Australia.
Died 1993, Kempsey, Australia.

Museum of Contemporary Art

Aboriginal Camp at Sunset, 1988
acrylic on canvas

Courtesy of Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and the Wesfarmers Collection of Australian Art, Boorloo/Perth

In Aboriginal Camp at Sunset, Robert Campbell Jnr paints an imagined scene of a group of Aboriginal men gathered the evening before the arrival of the First Fleet on the shores of Botany Bay. The sun, setting on their final hours of true freedom, retains energy, embodying Campbell’s unique ability to hold pain and pride in a delicate, defiant balance.

Campbell emerged as a singularly talented and incisive artist in the 1980s, his work recalling designs found on the insides of possum-skin cloaks from south-eastern Australia, and the patterned engravings of Aboriginal shields, clubs and boomerangs. His graphic style drew upon the patterning of traditional Ngaku designs to depict the stories of his people and the ongoing impact of colonisation.

Many of Campbell’s figures feature a red tie-like oesophagus, which evokes the X-ray technique used in Arnhem Land rock paintings, where the internal organs and bones of native animals and spirits are depicted. One rock painting from the Madjedbebe region illustrates a European rifle with a bullet in its barrel. Expressing the ongoing relationship between Indigenous people and the natural and spiritual worlds, Campbell seamlessly integrates ancestral artistic conventions with a contemporary style.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.