Essential questions: Blak Douglas

Born Adam Douglas Hill in Western Sydney to a Dhungatti Aboriginal father and Caucasian mother, Douglas has a bold, linear style that is influenced by his formal study of graphic design and political engagement.

An Archibald finalist on four previous occasions, he won the prize for Moby Dickens, a depiction of Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens. Douglas is the first New South Wales Indigenous artist to win the prize and it is the first time a portrait of an Aboriginal woman has won. ‘I’m making up for lost ground in the failure to memorialise First Nations people,’ he says. ‘In the past I’ve considered each entry to the Archibald Prize a memorial to that individual and that’s why I only paint First Nations people.’

Why do you make art?

I feel indebted to people who have purchased works in the past. Also, I’ve crossed the point of no return, in that it’s expected of you. There are days where I don’t feel like doing it and wish I was something else, but now I feel completely written into my self-assumed contractual agreement. Also, there’s a dark shadow that hangs overhead, that is the shadow of failure and the shadow of pessimism, and it’s a scary thing! It’s there. You know the haters are the ones that are going to be first on your case if you don’t succeed. Also, I’m so much closer to the light at the end of the tunnel with this win that I can’t stop, because I don’t feel that I’m yet to be remunerated for what I produce.

Which artists would you like to meet or watch work?

In the past, my Boulevard of broken dreams image would have had me sitting at the bar with Frida [Kahlo] and [Jean-Michel] Basquiat. Now, I would like to meet Ai Weiwei and Yayoi Kusama. I want to have a good feast with those two. I just like to be in the energy of artists who are of a somewhat similar ilk – we come from politicised backgrounds or challenged backgrounds in a sense – as did Frida and Basquiat. So, I’d be more than happy to just look at a Chinese or Japanese garden with them and be peaceful.

Can you think of a cultural experience that changed the way you see the world?

Anytime there is an explicit example of overt racism. Let’s look at recent times – we could start with George Floyd, we could talk about any number of the most recent ten deaths in custody, we could look at the former Liberal government’s successive demonstrations of racist attitudes towards people of colour, particularly First Nations people here. That can be traced back to when Kevin Rudd read the Sorry [speech] and Liberal politicians turned their backs. I must admit my knee-jerk reaction is to think very dark acts towards those individuals. So, that’s what I tell the young black kids when I’m working with them in schools – you can paint about it, and you have the biggest stage in history in this country now, and I’m proof of that. If you continue to play into their game, you’re going to become statistical fodder for incarceration. So, try to figure out a way that you can make an artwork about it, and you’re most likely going to have a far better opportunity than I did when I started painting 20 years ago to have your piece hung on the wall for public viewing.

The optimism of living within an ongoing genocide afflicted by the Commonwealth of Australia on First Nations peoples is that it’s endless fodder for what I paint. That might be a selfish way of putting it, because if we don’t make the dire changes that we need there’s not going to be any keepers of the Dreaming in 30 years’ time. I think of some of my favourite cartoonists, like Farside [Gary Larson] it’s just a comedy of errors, as I’m sure it is for everybody, but I get to paint it. I get to play with the parodies and the ironies which becomes my truth.