Liss Finney

These works were developed as part of a group group show Stolen Property at the National Art School Library Stairwell Gallery in April 2020, also featuring works by Sadhbha Cockburn, Noah Bennett and Clancy Davies Etheridge.

This group exhibition examined the post-colonial, contemporary milieu of the Australian landscape, and our relationships to it as non-Indigenous Australian artists. Reflecting on species erased and centuries of ecological alteration, these works act as archive of the present-day experience of Australia, whilst reflecting on inconvenient truths of the past and contemplating an endangered future.

100 Lessons Not Yet Learnt (1778-2019) Last year Australia lost its 100th endemic animal species to extinction, each tied to post-colonialist activity and agriculture. To most, these animals are now just ghosts of the past, nameless and faceless, not even surviving in our countries’ collective memory. Merely just an abstract idea. White, sterile, scientific. This work presents itself as a memorial of absence, of identity and action, both having the power to be subtle yet significant.