Image: Archie MOORE Dermis (installation view) 2012, acrylic paint, wooden dowel, steel brackets. QUT Art Collection. Purchased 2012.
The work is composed of acrylic paint, wooden dowel and steel brackets and measures 1.2 metres tall by 1.52 metres wide with a depth of 5 centimetres. The work is displayed on a black background.
Working from top to bottom three distinctive components make up this artwork. In the centre, at the top, hangs a triangle of yellow acrylic material. It hangs over a wooden rod which is attached to the wall with steel brackets. The tip of the triangle points down and into the centre of the work.
Below the tip of the triangle and to the left is a rectangle of shortened red acrylic material that loosely hangs over a wooden rod slightly askew. On the right-hand side and similarly displayed, there is another wooden rod on steel brackets but with black acrylic material draped over it.
These colours are emblematic of the Aboriginal flag and symbolic to Aboriginal people. The yellow of the flag represents the sun. The red stands for the earth and the colour of ochre, which has ceremonial significance to the Aboriginal people. The black of the flag symbolises the Aboriginal people.
Moore’s Dermis comprises three skins of acrylic paint in the colours of the Aboriginal flag that have been layered using three traditional methods of painting (in the European tradition) - brush (red), roller (black), and palette knife (yellow). The work is powerful in its scale, directness and its simplicity, but also subtle with texture and the casual draping of each skin on its rail. Fundamental to the work, these “paintings” exist without the normal support of a stretcher frame. They are both assertive, like flags, but also have the humbler connotation of the domestic and a hand towel.
Kamilaroi/Bigambul artist Archie Moore works across media in conceptual, research-based portrayals of self and national histories. His ongoing interests include key signifiers of identity (skin, language, smell, home, genealogy, flags), the borders of intercultural understanding and misunderstanding and the wider concerns of racism.
In 2024 QUT alumnus Archie Moore is presenting a solo exhibition at the Australia Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, commissioned by Creative Australia and curated by Ellie Buttrose, Curator of Contemporary Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.