As a way of investigating my relationship with my adopted country I created an alter ego called Billie Thomas. This new persona freed me from any constraints I had placed on myself by notions of earlier “successes” and allowed me, or rather Billie T, to create work that examined our relationship with Australia in a new way.
Curator and academic David Chalmer writes that Billie T’s work 36 Ulurus “subverts white nostalgia and questions many of the tightly-held axioms of the Australian mythos” and that she “reflects on a childhood of nomadic poverty in an age of fetishistic property acquisition, online self-promotion and identity politics.” These are fine words, but do the works live up to the promise? You be the judge.
Visit her web site at www.36ulurus.com