Luke Roberts
Luke Roberts | Australia b.1952 | My West (Father and Son) 2009 | Camera John Elliott | Giclée print, ed. 1/5 | The James C Sourris, AM, Collection. Gift of James C Sourris, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2011. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | © The artist
Ten Years of Contemporary Art: The James C Sourris AM Collection | 12 November 2011 — 19 February 2012 | GOMA | Free admission
As a child, Luke Roberts was fascinated by costumes and their transformative potential. Later, in art school, the creation of characters and the appropriation of historical figures became a therapeutic and emancipating activity. Roberts constructed alternative narratives relating to religion, sexuality and human history in an attempt to escape the social constraints of the Bjelke-Petersen era and his family’s religious persuasions.
In this work, Roberts appears as a Native American alongside his father — dressed as a cowboy — making reference to his childhood interest in the Plains Indians. Although they wear matching black pinstriped shirts and assume an identical pose, Roberts wears his hair long with two plaits and holds a set of feathers, while his father’s hair is cropped short under his hat and he grasps a toy six-shooter pistol. The subtle differences illustrate contrasting values and cultural disparity between the generations, also suggesting a challenging family relationship.
