Self-portrait as Paul Foelsche
2023
Medium
type C print
Measurements
(42.0 × 32.9 cm)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, NGV Supporters of First Nations Art, 2024
© Gary Lee
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
With a meticulously staged mise en scène, Lee reveals with this self-portrait the capacity for photography to meddle with identity. Here he replicates a photographic self-portrait by Paul Foelsche (1831–1914), a German-Australian photographer whose anthropological approach to the medium saw him capture images of Lee’s ancestors. Foelsche was also the first police superintendent of the rapidly growing Palmerston precinct. Sitting as Foelsche, Lee recognises the tension between the colonial archive and his desire to celebrate Larrakia beauty.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Darwin, Northern Territory
Accession Number
2024.637
Department
First Nations Australia