My Bothways Identity – Dr Pamela Croft Dr Pamela Croft is a Kooma clan Euahlayi Nation descendent, the Wiradhuric dialect Yuwaalaraay language, from Southwest Queensland Australia. Dr Croft has practised as an independent visual artist since the mid-eighties, producing artworks that reflect her lived experience, guided by her Aboriginality and training in both Aboriginal and Western traditional art forms. As an artist she is often described as a bricoluer, creating conceptual installations and visual narratives that are constructs of a land-centred, Bothways philosophy to create alternative story sites for identity and displacement, histories, sense of place and the effects of colonisation. In My Bothways Identity, Dr Croft reimagines one of her earlier installations, encompassing works on paper, sculptural assemblage, found objects, pigment, plant dyes and fibre. 'Through my work, I am committed to an educational and social transformation that empowers the inherent strength of Australia's people and cultures. I tell stories highlighting similarities and differences. The challenge is to embrace those differences rather than reject them. I ask people to truly listen and absorb in order to move to a place of understanding of our world'. In 2003, Dr Croft was the first Aboriginal person to gain a Doctor of Visual Arts, and since then has exhibited extensively throughout Australia and overseas in solo, group and collaborative projects. Now retired from academia, Dr Croft lives and works from her Bundaberg studio on the lands of the Gooreng Gooreng, Taribelang Bunda, Gurang, and Bailai peoples. Exhibition Opening Event Friday 13 September at 5.30 pm Gallery Opening Times Weekdays: 9.30 am to 5 pm Weekends: 10 am to 2 pm
