Those trees came back to me in my dreams: National Portrait Gallery

Since the late 1980s, Joan has exhibited across a range of mediums, from drawing, painting, photography and sculpture to installation, video, and virtual reality. Her experimental works combine colonial iconography and landscape painting with collaged elements of western commodity culture connected to land tenure and Aboriginal peoples' active presence on the land.

Joan's use of fluorescent yellow and high-visibility clothing symbolises colonisation and fear. The act of depicting people in this bright clothing and placing fluorescent objects in the landscape does more, however, than simply illustrate colonisation; it also highlights and exaggerates the foreign or alien aspects of her work and its association with the landscape and the cultural and spiritual connection to place.

Recent projects include her major solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (until 2025), major presentations and commissions for Ngununggula and Ballarat galleries, and was awarded the National Art School Fellowship in 2023.

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