Juno Gemes: Reviews

Gemes, who has spent decades working with Aboriginals, is as interested in the purely visual as she is in the social-political aspects of modern Aboriginal life. There are many joyous pictures, there are more abstract commentaries (actors Cate Blanchett & Ernie Dingo on the set of TV show Heartland): but Gemes eschews the easy shock value of negative realism. Her vision is a healing one, bringing tradition and willingly integrated Australians like Dingo together in a wholesome depiction of hope and belief.

~ Ryll Ryees-Jones, Metro Life, Evening Standard, London August 9, 2000.

With the Sydney Olympics hoving into view, there’s no better time to consider the art and rights of Australia’s neglected first people. “Where the Sacred Fish Come in”, an exhibition of photographs of Aboriginal life by photographer Juno Gemes (at The Rebecca Hossack Gallery), does just that, a poignant, polemical reminder of intimacy and atrocity down under, where the gap between white and black quality of life still gapes wider than the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

~ Time Out, London May 2000

‘Gemes is able to give voice to those who inhabit her images’ - a quality of artistic integrity that shines through every one of these remarkable, luminous images transforming documentation unmistakably into art. Not by assuming their identity but by placing herself within their lives and struggles her photographs become a crucial, integral part of that story through which Aboriginal art has moved from the dark and dusty corners of Australian Museums and galleries (and in London slowly too) to centre stage.

~ Nicolas Usherwood, Art Monthly November 2000

Rebecca Hossack Gallery
35 Windmill Street
Fitzrovia, London, W1T 2JS
UK
www.r-h-g.co.uk

Reviews

Where The Sacred Fish Come In Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London, 2000

Where The Sacred Fish Come In
Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London, 2000