Echoes of Grace by Charmaine Lyons

Judy Watson is a descendant of the Waanyi people, born in Mundubbera, Queensland. She is one of Australia’s most respected contemporary artists whose practice spans painting, printmaking and installation of national and international significance. Working from her Yeronga studio in Brisbane, her work is rooted in Country and explores hidden stories of Indigenous experience.  

Charmaine Lyons says the portrait portrays “an artist held by the presence of her grandmothers’ land and by histories that continue to move beneath the surface. Water is central to this image, not only as a reference to Watson’s Waanyi inheritance, but also as a carrier of story, culture and remembrance. Surrounded by works speaking to place and suppressed histories.”

In this photograph, Watson is not positioned beside her work but held within it. Her eyes are closed. She is not performing for the lens. Watson is depicted as both artist and truth-teller, a powerful presence within the stories she has spent a lifetime telling.