N.Smith Gallery
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Exhibitions
  • Stockroom
  • Store
  • Contact / Visit
Cart
0 items A$
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Menu
Kyra Mancktelow:
Gubba Up.
N.Smith Gallery, 15 - 26 Feb 2022

Kyra Mancktelow:
Gubba Up.
: N.Smith Gallery

Past exhibition
  • Overview
  • Installation Views
  • Press
Kyra Mancktelow: Gubba Up., N.Smith Gallery

‘To gubba up is to whiten up; to whiten up is to cover up.’

Gubba Up investigates the destruction of Aboriginal culture by covering up blak skin. ‘Gubba Up’, loosely translates to ‘whiten up’ – a phrase used by First Nations peoples to describe the need to change your way of life to suit your environment. To gubba up is to whiten up; to whiten up is to cover up. These and other systemic incursions are continual forms of the colonial regime imposed over Aboriginal land and people, and for Kyra Mancktelow, a key component of her ongoing investigation into garments and their unwritten histories.

 

Kyra’s multi-faceted series serve as starting point for her audience to learn more about the history of Australian colonial garments and their impact of Indigenous culture. The jackets worn by warriors have not survived, the artefacts are absent. It is not possible to see or touch the real fabric, study the colour, cut, stitching, buttons, piping, braid, the tears and stains. These coats and jackets are ghost artefacts, recorded only in the paintings and words of colonial power, and then often conveyed through thick lenses of ridicule, revulsion or pity.

 

While these jackets and coats are long gone, Kyra’s work remains.

Related artist

  • Kyra Mancktelow

    Kyra Mancktelow

Share
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Back to exhibitions

 Subscribe

 

Send an email
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Copyright © 2023 N.Smith Gallery
Site by Artlogic
Close

Subscribe to gallery updates

We won't send you lots of emails. Promise.

Sign me up!

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.