Nature Morte - Veiled Bird

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CreatorMichael CookTitleNature Morte - Veiled BirdDate2021MediumInkjet photograph on canvasDimensions140cm x 200cm x 6cmArtist StatementIn this new series, Michael Cook moves into the art-historical tradition of still life, while continuing to explore the devastating impact of colonisation on Australia's First Nations peoples. Cook's narrative broadens to encompass the global repercussions of environmental degradation. Grounded in a photographic aesthetic that echoes Dutch Old Master paintings, these images are invested with potent symbolism, and have a simmering emotional register in their inky darkness. A central tableau is featured in each image, beautifully lit to expose the detail of what is presented. Choreographed arrangements of plants, animals, objects and food systematically examine, as the narrative unfolds, the industry, practices, and traditions that have so effectively brought such damage to traditional Aboriginal culture, the natural environment of the Australian continent — and the globe.

Nature morte (Veiled bird) has a sombre and painterly darkness, out of which a central light reveals a tableau of stillness. A bird stands, head veiled by a shroud made from the dried leaf of a native lily. She holds an emu feather gently in her beak, while her leg is manacled, attached by a chain which rests in the gathered linen tablecloth. The veiled bird, her three eggs resting in the nest and the altar-like candle recently snuffed out, allude to nurturing instincts derailed by substance addiction. The emu feather, renowned for its softness, suggests good intentions despite an enslavement to addiction (drugs and alcohol evoked by the empty bottles, and broken poppies in a floral arrangement). The central leaf is worn like a cape which blinds this bird, physically and metaphorically, and takes us to the pieta, the mother's loss of her progeny.

A palpable sadness pervades this image. The emu female lays the eggs, but chicks are nurtured to maturity by the male. Cook was adopted into a white family — and has never met his Indigenous father. In its poignancy we witness the anguish of personal disconnection, juxtaposed with colonisation’s devasting impact and its ongoing ramifications. The translation of the French in the title of this series, Natures mortes is “dead nature”. And so it may prove, not just in Australia but throughout the world — if the “continuance” practised for so long by Indigenous clans remains at odds with the modern economy. Yet in the eggs lies a seed of hope, an inherent belief in the individual over environment, and the redemptive nature of culture.Accession NumberG2021.17.1Access AdviceFor research purposes only. No reproduction without permission of Yarrila Arts and Museum.

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Description

Still life photograph of a bird, veiled and shackled, atop a draped table and surrounded by a disarray of objects and flora. Inkjet photograph on canvas.

AgencyYarrila Arts & Museum (YAM)CollectionYAM Gallery CollectionSub-CollectionStill LifeExhibition HistorySTILL: National Still Life Award 2021