Damien Shen
Ngarrindjeri and Chinese descent
Born 1976, Adelaide
Still Life After Penn, 2016.
oil on board
40.4cm x 40.5cm
Gift of The Hon Paul M Guest OAM QC, 2022.
Image courtesy of the artist and MARS Gallery.
Photographer: Ian Hill
Visual description:
This simple composition features only a human skull, painted in cool white tones, sitting against a rich black background. The skull is incomplete, the bottom jaw and some teeth missing. Delicate highlights in warmer tones are just visible in the painting of the skull. The painting is crisp but also has a soft tonal quality.
Artist’s insights:
This painting is from an expansive body of work under the title Still Life After Penn, which explores the practices of universities and museums in terms of the representation of Indigenous people and histories and the widespread violent histories of collecting and keeping human remains. Shen explains:
“Still life after Penn is a complex interrogation of many things. It seeks to begin dialogues about what is right and what is wrong, about the living and the dead, and the spaces in between, while simultaneously interrogating the practices of museums historically and in the here and now.
I know these are not just skulls and femurs, after all, my family and community in South Australia endured the dehumanising and culturally violent practices of having remains and bodies stolen, dug from the earth or taken from hospital morgues in the dark of night by anthropologists and physicians. Although many have made their way home, the remains of my Aboriginal ancestors still sit in boxes within the collection stores of museums here in Australia and abroad, waiting to be returned to their homelands.”