"Colonial Angel"
Acrylic on gesso panel, 71 x 71 cm
SOLD
Homage to the ancestor: a light-hearted apology from the artist.
"Maria and St Anne"
Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 30 cm
$800
Anne Downes and Maria were fellow-convicts on the Northampton. The bond they forged was strong enough for Anne to take on the task of fostering Maria's youngest son 12 years later.
"Worlds Divided"
Acrylic on canvas, 25 x 30 cm
SOLD
Maria is standing on the opposite shore from Government House, representing the division of social class. The sea below divides her from her known world of family and friends. The native-born child and the English-born mother inhabit different realities.
"Remember Me"
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 35 cm
SOLD
Words taken from convict love-tokens (see Field & Millet '98) expressing the separation and alienation felt by those transported to the 'foreign country'. Maria was listed as convict number 66 on the Northampton.
"Economic Contribution"
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 35 cm
SOLD
Early governors saw the women convicts as economic burdens on the colony. Current feminist analysis recognises that the work done by the women in house-keeping, child-rearing, baking, sewing, cleaning, washing in the Tank Stream (pictured), etc. is an economic contribution still unacknowledged.
"Melancholia"
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 35 cm
SOLD
Representative of intense, unsurmountable loneliness and alienation: those who are wrenched away from all that is familiar and given no hope of return feel this keenly.
"Conduct quite the reverse"
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 35 cm
SOLD
The words are from the 1824 petition of James Briley to Governor Goulburn in which he requests that his wife Maria be assigned to the Female Factory:
the Sober and Industrious Habbits of Your Petitioner and her line of conduct quite the Reverse
The painting is based on early colonial wildlife studies, taking the crimson rosella as a reference to the 'scarlet woman' stereotype.
"The Value of Husbands"
Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 35 cm
SOLD
In the early colony, males outnumbered females in a ratio of 3 to 1. Maria evidently understood the need to align herself with a male 'protector' as she availed herself of three 'husbands'. In all she gave birth to eight children. The artist posits that she may have taken some pleasure in their conception.