This exhibition showcases the culmination of nearly twenty years work, to re-map the Yarra/Birrarung River and the history and environment of Melbourne/Naarm by Katie Roberts.  Artworks ranging from paintings to almost sculptural drawings incorporate multiple perspectives, capturing layers of history and conveying a powerful sense of place.

The artist presents us with a new way to view Melbourne, a way to face our collective history, as well as challenge the conventions of traditional landscape art. These artworks are informed by decades of research. Executed in ink, pencil, gouache, pastel, earth, oils and a range of other media, these artworks create evocative, eroded surfaces in the artist’s signature palette. These multi-layered artworks reveal some of the darker stories that are embedded in the land; a metaphor for the hidden layers, the buried trauma, the denied violence which lies beneath the surface of our culture and history. Beyond all of this is the undeniable spiritual presence and beauty that permeates this land.

Through this work Katie Roberts confronts the truth of our history and our role in ongoing colonialism, to seek to understand our place in this history. The artist acknowledges the Wurundjeri people, their Elders past, present and emerging and recognises that we are on stolen land, which was never ceded.

ARTIST BIO

Katie Roberts was born in Melbourne/Naarm in 1973, on Wurundjeri Land, into a family of authors, artists and activists deeply involved in the Landrights Movement. In London while drawing at the age four, she suddenly knew she was going to be an artist, this has been a driving force in her life ever since.

Katie Roberts studied fine art for ten years, while raising her son. In 1996 she undertook a BA in Fine Art RMIT, at first majoring in Painting. She moved to the newly established Drawing Department after the tragic death of her partner at the end of that year. She majored in drawing, under renowned artist Godwin Bradbeer. This broadened her definition of drawing and her practice to include installation, sculpture, projection into drawing and her art.

In 2000 she took up an Honours year, in which she explored projection installations, an extension of her drawing practice.

After completing honours in 2001 Katie Roberts went on to establish Synergy Gallery, a non-profit, community, contemporary art space in High Street Northcote, which she coordinated for ten years, curating and mentoring many artists and presenting 200 exhibitions.

In 2006 she completed her Masters in Fine Art, in projection installation entitled Light as a Medium.

After completing her Masters in 2006, Katie Roberts began the long-term project to re-map the Yarra/Birrarung River. One day while walking by the river she felt suddenly compelled to undertake a long-term, project to remap Melbourne via the river. The urge to make more tangible, physical work, grounded in her love of the land and drawing was undeniable. This project incorporated her background, knowledge, experience and sense of purpose, most importantly it addressed the lack of knowledge in the non-Indigenous community.

This ongoing project has been shown in a series of exhibitions along the river, culminating a major solo exhibition at Montsalvat in 2009-2010. She exhibited the body of work as it developed in shows heading upstream. In 2022 Katie Roberts returned to the series of exhibitions, heading downstream starting at Burrinja Cultural Centre in the exhibition Yarra/Birrarung, alongside Aunty Janet Turpie-Johnstone.

During the last ten years Katie Roberts has undertaken a number of lengthy artist residencies to further expend the project and her knowledge of the land, including at the Darebin Creek, Merri Creek and the Port Phillip Bay. Katie Roberts has held twenty solo shows and been involved in over 30 group shows and is a regular in an open studios programme in Alphington. She has taught and mentored many artists, through art classes in the community, (including teaching Life Drawing Montsalvat) and at Swinburne Universality.

In recent years she has devoted her time completely to her professional art practice, travelling and enjoying grandparenting. Her works are held in private collections both in Australia and overseas, several works are owned by local MPs. Underpinning all her work is a belief that art serves an essential function in society, to communicate the profound; to conceptualise our state of being; to address the past and perhaps to visualise a wiser future.