Destiny Deacon

Oz Games - Under the spell of the tall poppies, 1998-2003
light jet print from Polaroid original
100 x 80 cm (image); 120.5 x 100 cm (frame); number 5 from an edition of 15 + AP
signed and editioned ‘Destiny 5/15’ (lower right) and inscribed with title and date ‘Oz Games - Under the spell of the tall poppies, 1998-2003’ (lower left)

View extended notes


Provenance
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Acquired from the above in December 2003

Exhibited
Another from this edition
Destiny Deacon - d-tour, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, 14 August – 6 September 2003
Destiny Deacon - Walk & don't look blak, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 26 November 2004 - 30 January 2005; Cultural Centre Tjibaou, Noumea, New Caledonia, 1 June - 28 August 2005


Literature
Natalie King, Brenda L Croft, Lisa Reihana, Djon Mundine, Marcia Langton, Richard Bell, Hetti Perkins and Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Walk & don't look blak, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2004, exh. cat. illus. front page & p.67
Blair French, 'Destiny Deacon', Twelve Australian Photo Artists, Piper Press, 2009, illus. p.44 & p.45


"Partly fictious and partly autobiographical, Deacon’s world is populated by a cast of dolls, family and friends who enact ‘soap opera’ vignettes. As a result, her cast of stand-ins recurs as characters are reconfigured into different scenes. Deacon dramatises human comedies and tragedies in her TV tableaux. Within invented and fabricated dioramas, her entourage is accompanied by masks, props and costumes revealing human foibles. Take Oz Games – Under the spell of the tall poppies (1998): Dorothy lies inert, perhaps delirious, on a lion’s lap, resplendent in a red costume with tiny sparkly shoes and a bow in her hair. Deacon’s rendition of the Judy Garland Technicolour classic – The Wizard of Oz (1939) – replaces the enchantment of the dazzling land of Oz with the Tin Man holding an axe adjacent to a dishevelled Scarecrow. This is no Emerald City. Positioned below a row of poppies, Deacon’s title alludes to ‘tall poppies’ and an Aussie version of this famous road movie. Here traits are exposed, feelings and mixed emotions uncovered in a parodic setting. Characters seem to be acting up and acting out." (Natalie King, 'Episodes - 'A Laugh and a Tear in Every Photo' in Walk & don't look blak, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2004, exh. cat. p.18

  • Oz Games - Under the spell of the tall poppies

Image courtesy of the Estate of Destiny Deacon and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney


View artist profile

☆ Add to wishlist
Destiny Deacon was a KuKu (Far North Queensland) and Erub/Mer (Torres Strait) artist. Born in Maryborough, Queensland in 1957, Deacon was a photo artist, video maker, performer, writer and broadcaster who stimulates ideas about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander politics. Her work references racial stereotypes in art and popular culture, as well as suburban and childhood objects and imagery to bring to light the demeaning, bizarre and racist depictions of Indigenous Australians in film and televsion, black children's dolls and in kitsch decorative objects. Deacon once said of her images that "I like to think there is a laugh and a tear in each picture", a sentiment that captures perfectly the competing senses of innocence and tragedy that underlie her artworks and ideas.

After working alongside Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins as one of his "Angels", Deacon began working as a photographer with her first solo exhibition, Caste Offs at Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (1993). Since then, she established her place as a major Australian artist domestically and further afield, showing at the prestigious Documenta 11, Hatje Cantz, Germany and major festivals and biennales in Sydney, Australia (2024); Yokohama, Japan (2002); Johannesburg, South Africa (1995) and Havana, Cuba (1994). As much a cultural figure as an artist, she is credited with introducing the term "Blak" to describe First Nations art and culture.

In 2020, Deacon received the largest exhibition of her work to date, DESTINY, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, which looked back on three decades of photography, installations and other works. Her 2004 major survey, Walk & don't look blak, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, toured to the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, the Tjibao Cultural Centre, Noumea, New Caledonia and Wellington City Gallery, New Zealand. Deacon died in May 2024.