Lin Onus reproductions | FireWorks Gallery

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Selected works

FW8129 Ginger and my third wife check the mailbox	FW8130 Bunyindji yirrpigi guya	FW8149 Ginger and my third wife approach the roundabout
FW8150 The road to Redfern	FW10393 Hovering till the rains come	FW10762 Bunpa near Malwan
FW12194 Barmah forest	FW14434 Gargining (Tortoises)

Bio & CV

Born: 1948 Melbourne VIC

Died: 1996 Melbourne VIC

Language: Yorta Yorta

Region: Barmah Forest VIC

Lin Onus was born in Victoria in 1948 to a Scottish mother and an Aboriginal father Bill Onus. After working alongside his family making artefacts and souvenirs, Lin began painting in the early 1970s. Largely self-taught, he evolved from these humble beginnings as a competent landscape painter with a complex story to tell, to being one of the most significant cultural statesman for Urban based Aboriginal artists in Australia.

In 1986 he visited Arnhem Land, and the pursuing cultural exchange that look place provided an integral part to this visual repertoire, being the ability to paint “two ways’. Under the guidance and authority of senior artists at Maningrida, Onus was able to combine the representational Australian landscape genre with specific “rark” or cross hatching designs passed onto him by traditional owners. In return, Lin offered much back with a lifetime commitment to being, “a bridge between cultures”, and developing opportunities for artists all over Australia.

His paintings, sculptures, prints and installation works are represented in every State gallery and most major collections in Australia and many overseas as well. Lin had 18 solo exhibitions in Australia and over 40 group exhibitions in Australia, Asia, Europe and America.

His stories often showing a quirky sense of humor amidst sensitive cultural insights have been central to the voice of contemporary Indigenous Australian and were included in numerous international art exhibitions in Glasgow, Kyoto, Tokyo, Finland and the much acclaimed Aratjarra “Art of the First Australians” touring Dusseldorf, London and Copenhagen 1993 - 94.

Lin was appointed to the Australia Council as Chairman of the Aboriginal Artists Management Association which he co-founded in 1990 until 1993. In 1993 Onus was awarded an Order of Australia for his contribution as an arts practitioner and ambassador for Aboriginal artists. In 1994 Lin won the Australian Heritage Commission Aboriginal Art Award and the RAAKA Awards for his epic sculpture, “Taking the Children Away”.

For Lin, art was a tool, a weapon and a shelter and his work spanned many dimensions and many audiences. For someone that carried so much responsibility on his shoulders there was no distinction between the political and the beautiful. His art reflects this.

LIN ONUS

Born: 1948 Melbourne VIC – died 1996 Melbourne VIC

Language: Yorta Yorta

Region: Barmah Forest VIC

EXHIBITIONS—SOLO

2009 Meaning of Life Marroondah Art Gallery

2008 It All Started from Black, in Memory of Lin Onus Coo-ee Aboriginal Art, Sydney

2000 - 2002 Urban Dingo: The Art and Life of Lin Onus Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, The Melbourne Museum Melbourne and Queensland Art Gallery Brisbane

1993 24 Hours by the Billabong FireWorks Gallery Brisbane

1989 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne

1988 Koori Kollij, Melbourne

1988 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne

1982 Auburn Galleries, Melbourne

1979 Gallery 333, Melbourne

1978 Hesley Gallery, Canberra

1977 Holdsworth Gallery, Sydney

1976 Taurinus Gallery, Melbourne

1975 Aboriginal Advancement League, Melbourne

EXHIBITIONS—GROUP (SELECTED)

2014 LEGENDS: Aboriginal Master Works FireWorks Gallery Brisbane

2013 Firebrand II: In focus Ian Waldron and Collaborative Corner FireWorks Gallery Brisbane

2010 AIAM100.com Launch Exhibition Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney

1994 Power of the Land, Masterpieces of Aboriginal Art National Gallery of Victoria

1994 Yiribana Art Gallery of New South Wales

1993 ARATJARA, Art of the First Australias Touring Kunstammlung Nordrhein

1994 Westfalen, Dusseldorf; Hayward Gallery, London; Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark

1992 New Tracks Old Land: An Exhibition of Contemporary Prints from Aboriginal Australia Touring USA and Australia

1991 Aboriginal Art and Spirituality High Court, Canberra

1991Australian Perspecta Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

1991 Flash Painting National Gallery of Australia

1990 Balance 1990: views, visions, influences QAG, Brisbane

1990 Tagari Lia: My Family, Contemporary Aboriginal Art 1990 – from Australia

1990 Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, UK

1989 Contemporary Aboriginal Art Hurst Gallery, Hobart, Tasmania

1989 A Koori Perspective Artspace, Sydney

1989 Crosscurrents – a survey of Traditional and Urban Aboriginal Art Sydney

1989 Aboriginal Art: The Continuing Tradition National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

1989 A Myriad of Dreaming: Twentieth Century Aboriginal Art

1989 Westpac Gallery, Melbourne; Design Warehouse Sydney

1988 A changing relationship: Aboriginal Themes in Australian Art 1938-1988 S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney

1988 Koori Art Doncaster Gallery in conjunction with the Victorian Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Trust, Melbourne

1988 The Fifth National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

1988 Bulawirri/Bugaja – A Special Place NGV, Melbourne

1988 Urban Aboriginal Art: A Selective View Contemporary Arts Centre of South Australia, Adelaide

1988 Long Water Aboriginal Artists Gallery, Sydney

1987 Dalkuna Mnunuway Nhe Rom, Seven Maori Artists – Seven Aboriginal Artists Foreign Exchange, Melbourne

1987 Art and Aboriginality Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, England

1987 The Fourth National Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition

1987 Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

1985 Morwell Regional Gallery, Morwell, Victoria

1984 The First Aboriginal Art Award Exhibition Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

1984 Musqito Series in conjunction with Koorie Art ’84, AGNSW, Sydney

1984 Koorie Art ’84 Artspace, Sydney

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