Took our children away
2024
- Medium
- synthetic polymer paint on canvas
- Measurements
- (120.0 × 120.0 cm)
- Place/s of Execution
- Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia
- Department
- First Nations Australia
- Credit Line
- Purchased with funds donated by Linda Herd and the Canny Quine Foundation, 2025
© John Prince Siddon c/o Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency - Gallery location
- Gallery 1
Ground Level, NGV Australia - About this work
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John Prince Siddon came to painting later in life, after a horseriding accident forced him to rethink life as a stockman across the Great Sandy Desert. In 2009 Siddon joined the Fitzroy Crossing arts centre, Mangkaja Arts, of which his father, Jirtin Pompey Siddon, was a founding member. Siddon’s technicoloured art practice has become immediately recognisable, placing him among the most revered contemporary artists in Australia. This work references the late First Nations singer-songwriter Archie Roach’s recognisable song of the same name, and is as an ode to First Nations mothers across Australia whose children have been forcibly and violently removed through colonial policies.