'I don't take art seriously'

Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey takes on the right in his playful works, which are startling in their rowdy satire, poking fun at Trump and 'Tukka Cullsin'

- Steve Dow

In the paintings of Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey, armies of tough kangaroos and other native animals, such as possums, goannas, crocodiles and snakes, represent Australia’s Indigenous peoples . Invasive species such as cane toads and camels, meanwhile, “represent the ugliness of invasive peoples to our lands, country and culture”.

The 61-year-old’s art is funnier than that might suggest and startling in its rowdy satire. Politicians are pigs in his paintings, which tend to be visual commentaries on land rights, deaths in custody and environmental degradation . English, to Hookey, is the colonisers’ language, and he takes liberties with playful puns and misspellings: “terrorists” become “terra-ists”, invoking the colonial myth that Australia was an unspoiled terra nullius, or land belonging to no one .

“I don’t take my art seriously at all,” he says. “I have fun with it. I play. I’m silly.”

Is anger a factor in his work? “Anger could destroy you from within,” he says. “I do feel anger, but that somehow morphs into passion. People can interpret passion and intensity of feeling as anger. But when you feel strongly about something, you’re able to articulate in a particular way.”