Arrente woman Angelina Parfitt is a Flinders University alumna who created the diptych Artist’s Vision (2010–2011) at the culmination of her Visual Art studies during her Education degree. Parfitt reveals that this work symbolically represents the experience of entering, journeying through and eventually leaving university, and is created in an artistic style particular to Aboriginal groups of the greater Central Australia region that are home to her people.[1]
Parfitt’s use of colours that are traditionally created with ochres (such as reds, yellows, brown and whites) alongside bright greens and oranges blends her cultural heritage with her present-day experience, and her use of symmetry creates a captivating visual rhythm across the canvasses. The University is depicted from an aerial viewpoint with white dotted paths and footsteps representing the journey of students’ learning from commencement to completion, while yellow and red concentric circles frame gathering places and the surrounding landscape. The expansive scale of the artwork speaks to Parfitt’s experience of the University as a vast—and at times overwhelming—place, while its outwardly unfolding composition mirrors her journey as one of personal growth.
[1] Angelina Parfitt, artwork statement, 2011.
