A decade has passed since the tragic, premature death of artist Lin Onus (1948-1996). Time has revealed the depth and breadth of his work, which was so inspired by the power of the land and of Aboriginal tradition, together with an acute awareness of the need to bridge the cultural gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.
Indeed, a retrospective of Onus’s work presented by the Queensland Art Gallery in 2000–2001, and a display at Melbourne Museum, In Honour of Lin Onus, (1 June 2002–1 June 2007), gives recognition to his wonderful artistic legacy. Onus was an artist who had that special ability to touch the lives of many Australians and to do so in creative and unexpected ways. The very fact that he was an Aboriginal artist makes his life and work all the more interesting.
A study of the art of Lin Onus reveals an interesting certainty: he often takes us on a journey into the histories and cultures of Aboriginal Australians, using themes and recollections that provide an opportunity for gaining a deepening insight into outcomes of colonisation processes and contemporary realities. It also, importantly, takes us on a journey into the land as a powerful place of healing and restoration.
Onus returned to the theme of Barmah (his father’s country) in the final period of his life, and this homecoming seems to tell us that he was looking at the land as a place where he could symbolically take refuge, a site where he could find spiritual sustenance and meaning. In the large painting on linen, Barmah Forest, 1994 (now in the collection of the Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra), Onus introduces the viewer to the jigsaw pieces that were a recurring symbol in his art, speaking of his need to rediscover lost pieces of his Aboriginal heritage. He seems to ask the viewer to engage with the work in a way that demands effort. We see how he communicates a sense of the living energy and the lifeblood of the land, yet it is also a land where something is missing. If you look closely, you’ll see that Onus has painted jigsaw pieces that don’t quite fit. In an unpublished chronology of Lin Onus’s life (1998/99), Onus’s widow Jo and his son Tiriki explain that changes to the land in the form of ‘farms, tourists, carp, and cows’ gave Onus a sense of the impossibility of attempting to ‘retrieve