Metro Arts Gallery

Colour by Numbers

Dale Harding

Colour by Numbers is an Exhibition of works by Dale Harding (first solo exhibition) at Metro Arts, as part of the September Brisbane festival and was running for only a week from the 1^st till the 6^th of October, and can be viewed in the level 2 gallery space between 10am and 4:30pm.

The colour by numbers refers to the government and the number you are given according to the gradient of your skin tone. Dale displays works that relate to his cultural identity and place within Australia, and the exhibition incorporates the storytelling of Australia’s history with aboriginal children (particularly the exploitation of young women and girls like his grandmother), and incorporates it with the traditions of cross stitching that were passed down and taught to him by his grandmother and mother.

The exhibition consisted of one room with quite a number of works, the first two pieces that I saw where “Trusties on Trial” consisting of a simple needle on a string attached to old steel wool rolled and worked into a ball attached to the wall above a white horizontal piece of wood (plinth). This piece is referring to embroidery and is referencing working young girls (like his grandmother). It was beautifully simple and extremely effective, alone on the gallery wall not surrounded by anything else had a very big impact when viewing it.

Displayed on the wall parallel “Breaking Boundaries” was another seemingly simple, but very impacting piece. The work consisted of about 5 stakes, 4 with different degrees of burnt off wood, evenly attached to the wall all parallel to each other. Upon further discussions of this piece we discover this piece suggests cleansing, and the mapping of the land, also using the steaks to say something or tell a story like message sticks (a form of communication between Indigenous Australians).

One of my favourite works consisted of six different patterned cross stitch works all framed using found frames, which have also each been reframed. We were informed that Dale uses needlework as an outlet, to convey secret messages. It is clear that Dale is expressing his cultural identity within these pieces. Each frame displaying what looks like your typical cross stitch patterns with messages like “Bless our home with BROWN LOVE”, and “Im a happy little sodomite” stitched below two jars of cross stitched vegemite or “Homo Sweet Homo” stitched inside a typical house pattern underneath a rainbow and the use of two male symbols stitched between a cockatoo and a kangaroo, where Dale is openly sharing that he is a Queer Indigenous Australian.

Dale uses the colour pink a lot throughout his work in this exhibiton, this could be in reference to pink being known as the “gay” colour (since pink triangles branded gay men in the holocaust). In Dales other pieces he has used pink thread to stitch patterns of native Australian animals onto material or creating his own emblem using the cock’atoo and kangaroo facing into a black boy plant and two male symbols.

The Colour by Numbers exhibition was well presented, and it was great to see another artist using a medium generally not seen in the Indigenous Australian art scene.