Lisa Waup

Lisa Waup’s oeuvre is intrinsically linked to her complex cultural experience, which includes the tracing of her First Nations ancestry to the Gunditjmara people of Western Victoria and the people of the Torres Strait, her former life as a resident of Papua New Guinea, and her relationships with her two mothers, adoptive and biological.

Waup’s sculptural and experimental printmaking practices are propelled
by a layering of graphic symbolism, language and materials. Waup’s sophisticated repertoire of mark-making and deft harnessing of materials is as fundamental to her work as the messages and stories they contain. In recent work, Waup uses quotidian road signage and hessian sandbags, recontextualizing them to suggest ways in which First Nations knowledge could help to shape a better future.

Image top: Lisa Waup, NELOTS, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of McClelland Gallery.