{"id":31239,"date":"2026-05-21T11:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T03:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/?post_type=media-release&p=31239"},"modified":"2026-05-21T11:59:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T03:59:24","slug":"new-large-scale-works-from-christopher-pease-and-cinematic-video-from-reko-rennie-highlight-connection-to-country-at-john-curtin-gallery","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/new-large-scale-works-from-christopher-pease-and-cinematic-video-from-reko-rennie-highlight-connection-to-country-at-john-curtin-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"New large-scale works from Christopher Pease and cinematic video from Reko Rennie highlight connection to Country at John Curtin Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

John Curtin Gallery presents two major exhibitions Christopher Pease: Terra Nullius<\/em><\/a> and Reko Rennie: OA_RR<\/em><\/a> on show from May 29 to August 23, 2026, bringing together powerful First Nations perspectives on history, identity and connection to Country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presented as part of the Gallery\u2019s Makuru season program, the exhibitions foreground intergenerational memory and cultural resilience, across painting and immersive multi-channel video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A combination of new large-scale paintings and loans from major public and private collections, Christopher Pease:<\/em> Terra Nullius,<\/em> reveals the Minang\/Wardandi\/Bibbulmun artist’s sustained interrogation of sovereignty, land and power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on museum archives and 19th-century landscape painting, Pease reworks images that once cast Western Australia as empty and available for settlement, reinscribing Indigenous presence through bold Noongar iconography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaped by themes of social justice, land use and Noongar identity, the artworkplaces Western art traditions in dialogue with Indigenous systems of knowledge to challenge colonial authority and reclaim space, transforming a doctrine of denial into a powerful assertion of survival, sovereignty and enduring connection to Country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pease said \u2018Terra Nullius\u2019 refers to land that is deemed to be legally unoccupied and was a term used by first settlement both on the east and west coast of Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThis meant that the land could be legally claimed by the British colony,\u201d Pease said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdmiral Sir James Stirling successfully lobbied the British Government to establish the new colony of Perth and part of the pretext for his proposal was \u2019Terra Nullius\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe canvas is often divided into sections much like the boodja (land) was divided into private property, other motives include multi-faceted iconography or scientific drawings, this layering provides underlying narratives for the viewers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immersive in scale and sound, Kamilaroi\/Gamilaroi artist Reko Rennie\u2019s two major multi-channel video works, OA_RR<\/em> (2016\u201317) and Initiation OA_RR<\/em> (2021), foreground customised classic cars as powerful conduits of identity, memory and return to Country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soundtracked by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, OA_RR<\/em> merges burnout culture with ceremonial mark-making, as Rennie takes a 1973 Rolls-Royce Corniche \u2013 hand-painted in his signature fluorescent camouflage and Kamilaroi diamond patterns \u2013 back to his grandmother\u2019s Country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initiation OA_RR<\/em> shifts to Footscray\u2019s industrial streets, where a metallic pink 1973 Holden Monaro performs burnouts across an urban landscape tied to Rennie\u2019s youth. Underscored by an operatic score by Deborah Cheetham, the work transforms car culture into a powerful expression of cultural continuity, remembrance and assertion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rennie said through his art he provokes discussion surrounding Indigenous culture and identity in contemporary urban environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was born in an urban environment where traditional notions of initiation were experienced in a completely different way to my ancestral home of the Kamilaroi\/Gamilaroi people of Northwestern NSW,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presented together, the exhibitions create a dialogue between place and perspective \u2014 from Noongar Boodja in Western Australia to Kamilaroi Country in New South Wales \u2014 highlighting both local and national narratives of resistance, survival and cultural continuity.

John Curtin Gallery Curator Lia McKnight said together, these exhibitions assert powerful, contemporary expressions of cultural continuity, resistance, and self-determination.,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy bringing these projects into dialogue, the Gallery highlights two leading contemporary artists whose practices confront and reframe colonial histories,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRennie and Pease each activate landscape as a site of Indigenous sovereignty, memory, and connection to Country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exhibition Details:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n