Kyra Mancktelow’s Special Commendation is yet another accolade after her recent acceptance of the Emerging Artists Award at the NATSIAA Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.
Judge Rhana Devenport noted: “Through her beautiful prints, objects, and body adornments, Quandamooka artist Kyra Mancktelow addresses the fraught legacies of a traumatic and complex colonial past.”
No Perception references the military jackets worn by naval officers on the First Fleet. These jackets were given to First Nations peoples as they were seen as naked through Western eyes. Kyra argues that First Nations peoples were never naked – they proudly wore scarification and paint from ceremony, and that the adoption of European dress is likely to have aided in the destruction of Aboriginal culture.
