A long time ago, new families came to this land. They were not human. If I were to describe them in my own way, to my family, I would tell them they were 'djang'. They had a power. Djang can emanate from a site, a person, an animal, a rock. I will describe them to you, ‘as the cosmos’.

Two little girls were born. Truth’s father and Justice’s mother were brother and sister. So they were cousins. They loved each other dearly and were very close. Justice was born blind. Truth always took care of her cousin.

One day all the families attended a ceremony of Law. During the ceremony young Truth stood up and she spoke. But she spoke out of turn. Justice heard her voice and fell over people as she rushed towards her cousin’s side. She knew Truth was not permitted to speak at this ceremony. Justice stood by Truth’s side and pleaded for leniency.

But it was too late. It was ordered that Truth have her tongue torn from her mouth and be forever silent. The two cousins were then banished, one to the East and one to the West, never to be together again.

Perhaps the story is today in this country, that maybe Truth and Justice can only ever meet in the dreams of honorable people.

Courtesy of the Artist 2008

BLUE PRINTS AND OTHER STORIES
Christine Christophersen came to painting after a long apprenticeship. Some might describe it as quite typically an ‘Aboriginal apprenticeship’. Growing up on her Mothers’ country in around her native Kakadu region, listening to stories and learning to understand the complex kinship systems; becoming a mother and later a grandmother, being an active campaigner for land rights and a strident voice social justice, working in film, traveling and networking nationally and internationally, processing her stories, looking for visual solutions and finally some serious studio time.

Her painting retains much of this zeal and energy, the vigor of someone urgently seeking. They are bold and assertive yet warily revealing something about the ageless mystery of it all. Christine often paints with her fingers. She tidies it all up with a brush but Christine Christophersen certainly presents herself as someone who doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty.

More recently Christine has been noticed by several keen curators and collectors who have observed the raw energy of her emotive figurative works. Her work has also attracted the attention of stage writers and designers who pick up on the theatrical nature and didactic potential.  Perhaps though we can look at some of her previous work provides an important framework for Christine’s visual repertoire.

The Blue Print series was begun conceptually in 2000 and continued into 2006.

The original painting series consists of 23 works and a film which was completed during a residency in France.

The stark graphic symbolism presents itself as mathematical formulas. Indeed the recurring symbols are gender based- triangles are women, circles are men. They are all colour coded. This manifests itself as derivatives of ‘skin’ groups (dhuwa and yirritja moities, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters etc). Blue Print is the artist’s own visual chart of a kinship system that many outside of the culture know little about, yet for thousands of Indigenous people in the north of Australia living inside this system for generations, it sets up critical universal boundaries, indeed “there are Christine writes 32 ways to relate to human beings.. it’s our story… our version of god…ours is a woman, it’s an epic story. It takes years to learn. It’s the basis of our religion and law, our land and our people in North west Arnhem land.”

Courtesy of the Artist 2006