In 1989, Lin Onus met master printmaker Shaike Snir at Port Jackson Press Australia, then the country’s oldest printmaking studio. Over the following years the two artists built an intimate report, spending their lunch breaks experimenting at boundaries of printmaking until Onus’s untimely death in 1996. He left these works in his wake – a series of unique works on paper, each imbued with a powerful presence with some reaching across generations, finding completion at the hands of Onus’s son, Tiriki Onus.

Lin & Tiriki Onus 'Reflection Experimental'

Lin Onus 'Untitled (Cross)'

The artist as an individual genius was a myth that never resonated with Lin Onus. Of Yorta Yorta and Scottish descent, he denied our urge to categorise and simplify, producing art that moved across mediums to merge Western and Aboriginal iconography. In works like ‘Blue Leaves with Frogs’, we are faced with three perspectives – a creek dotted with frogs, a canopy of trees and scattering of blue leaves – a visual reminder that the landscape is neither monolithic nor resolved.

Lin Onus 'Blue Leaves with Frogs Heads'

Among the tranquil river scenes lies ‘In Memory of Our Ancestors Who Were Shot and Killed Here’. Of profound cultural significance, this work tells the story of the 1915 Mistake Creek Massacre wherein 32 Aboriginal people were murdered for the invented crime of stealing a cow. While Onus would typically build his prints upon a black ground, symbolic of his Aboriginal identity, here he presents the creek against white, the absence of black achingly poignant.

Lin Onus ‘In Memory Of Our Ancestors Who Were Shot And Burnt Here’

Each work in this series has excellent provenance and is one-of-a-kind, with many of their companion works in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia. For collectors of Onus and Aboriginal art, these works are something special – emblems of cross-generational collaboration, experimentation and Onus’s legacy, a “bridge between cultures, technology and ideas”.