Hope & Peace series

Brook Andrew

First Nations Australian, born Sydney 1970 Language group: Wiradjuri
[all works are from the Hope and Peace series]

Upper row, left to right
Chandelier – friendly fire 2005
colour screenprint; edition 2/6

I see you 2005
colour screenprint; artist’s proof (orange)

Frontier Lights 2005
colour screenprint; artist’s proof 2/2

Peace 2005
colour screenprint; artist’s proof 1 (pink, orange and yellow)

Black and White Special Cut 2005
colour screenprint; red trial proof 2/3

I see you 2005
colour screenprint; registration proof 4

Lower row, left to right
Against all odds – silver 2005
colour screenprint; artist’s proof 1

Black and White Special Cut 2005
colour screenprint; edition 1/5

Kamaldain/Composer 2005
colour screenprint; edition 2/6

BlackBlack on tropical friendly fire 2005
colour screenprint; edition 1/1

Against all odds – double gold horn 2005
colour screenprint; edition 1/1

I see you 2005
colour screenprint; edition 1/3 (silver)

Gift of Brook Andrew and Mabi Andrew through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2020

Writing about the Hope & Peace series, eminent Indigenous academic, activist and a key commentator on the work of Brook Andrew, Professor Marcia Langton, stated:

Elements of Wiradjuri visual and spoken language intertwine to empower Andrew’s Hope & Peace series of screenprints. Here slick advertising brands of cigarette packaging, chewing tobacco and chewing gum explode incongruously out of Wiradjuri texts and optical geometry in a dynamic echo of Russian Constructivism. The series unpacks contemporary global advertising by disclosing the way in which capitalist multinational corporations seduce consumers into buying the ultimate in First World consumer goods—cigarettes—through disingenuous trademarks such as ‘Peace & Hope’ and ‘Frontier Lights’. Andrew also teases out the repercussions of brand names, including BlackBlack (high technical excellent flavour) and Black & White Special Cut, which serve to commercialise and glamorise at the same time as obfuscating difference.

Click here to listen

Read by a voluntary Geelong Gallery Guide