Christian Thompson

Christian Thompson is an Australian artist/curator who currently lives in Amsterdam. His work explores notions of identity. His father is an Indigenous Australian and his mother is of German descent. Thompson's images subvert modes of representation. The above image is a self-portrait from the series titled 'Australian Graffiti' 2008. He literally draws on the history of the colonisation in Australia, were the first settlers classified Indigenous people as part of flora and fauna, non-human. The black hoodie along with the title of the work makes associations with the modern day street criminal. The composition refers to that of a police mug shot, also similar to early anthropological photographs of Aboriginal people. This image skillfully brings the history of Indigenous representation into the present whilst exposing the uncomfortable truths of our past.