11. Poison Country
by Jonathan Kumintjara Brown
Gallery of South Australia

At first, I understood this as a layer of ochre, the colour of the inland, mostly hiding an indigenous map of country. The white history of Australia being a very thin veneer over the top of the vast Aboriginal one.

But it's actually something entirely different, being that the painting is a response to the atomic tests at Maralinga, Jonathan Kumintjara Brown said that: "It is not a protest (..) But I am asking: why did they do this damage to my grandfather's land?"

Brianna Speight writes that: "This work references the nuclear testing that occurred between 1953 - 1965 in South Australia. Over 12 years there were 12 atomic bombs and 600 minor tests that contaminated the South Australian lands of the Pitantjara, Yankunytjatjara and Spinifex people. An 'out of mind, out of site' mentality was applied when the Australian Prime Minister granted permission for these tests. At the time, most of Australia didn't know what was going on, but what I find most chilling is that most of Australia still doesn't know.
I didn't know. Seeing this painting was the first I had ever heard of such events in our history. When I read the basic text accompanying the work that outlined the reference to Maralinga I was kind of in disbelief, I mean - how would I have not learned this at school?
Red ochre dominates the surface of the canvas, smearing the beautiful marks that lay beneath and just as the land was smeared so too was the knowledge of these events."

I think I prefer my interpretation.