Vicki Couzens is a Keerray Woorong Gunditjarra woman from the Western District of Victoria. Preferring the term “creative cultural expression” to describe her practice, she works to reclaim, regenerate, revitalise and celebrate cultural knowledge and practices.

This large painting is a powerful expression of the role women play in Aboriginal culture. In a pared back palette of red, white and black, Couzens paints a symbolic birth tree, where mothers went to birth their children. In the work’s accompanying catalogue entry, Counzens writes:
“Aboriginal women are the keepers of family and kinship. As well we are the healers and midwives; keepers of women’s business. This work represents the knowledge of women, the givers of life; our deep knowledge and wisdom of birth, life and death. In this work is a symbolic birthing tree where the mothers went to have their children. The spiral is a representation of the birth, life, death, rebirth cycle with the wisdom of our Old Women watching over us.”

For Couzens, art is about community. She is represented at the National Gallery of Victoria and has produced commissions for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Buxton Contemporary, a respected artist, academic and possum-skin-cloak maker.

Vicki COUZENS
'Woorrkngan (birth place)'
acrylic on canvas
Image Size: 122 x 92 cm
Dimensions: 122 x 92 x 4 cm
Signed: signed with initials VLC '10
 
Condition: Excellent
 
(c) The Artist or Assignee