Dominic White

Dominic White combines natural materials timber and sea kelp with steel and the methods that British settlers brought to Australia, such as branding and blacksmithing. What results is a conversation between materials, a visual language appropriate for work that address themes of First Nations identity and culture in the context of a post-colonial reality.

There is a distinct physicality to White’s creative practice and the artworks themselves. White forges steel, hammers metal and carves timber in the construction of disquieting sculptures that are spiked, weighty and dangerous. His array of quasi-utilitarian objects challenges the preoccupation of collecting and display institutions with categorisation: each coolamon (carrying vessel), waddy (club or hunting stick) and shield occupies a liminal space between artefact and artwork, ‘authentic’ and unreal.

Although White’s work unearths ugly truths about Australia, in it there is an unmistakable beauty. While Australia’s countries and waters have been irreversibly altered by colonial incursion, there exists beauty in the marriage of nature and the manmade. White encourages us to look closely for it.

Image top: Dominic White, Collared, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of McClelland Gallery.