The Yarra Yarra 1838 2024
ROSS, Joan
Registration number
1902066
Artist/maker
ROSS, Joan
Title
The Yarra Yarra 1838
Production date
2024
Medium
hand-painted digital print on rag paper, edition 5/15
Dimensions (H x W x D)
33.9 x 60 cm
Inscriptions
5/15 / FROM A MODEL IN THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION 1888 / 2024 / PREPARED FOR THE CITY COUNCIL BY MONSIEUR DROUHER / JOAN ROSS
Credit line
Purchased 2024
City of Melbourne Art and Heritage Collection
© Joan Ross, image courtesy the artist and N. Smith Gallery, Gadigal Country / Sydney
Keywords
Summary
This print by contemporary artist Joan Ross takes as its starting point a hand-coloured lithograph created by illustrator Clarence Woodhouse (1852-1931). The Art and Heritage Collection holds a copy of Woodhouse's print, with this contemporary artwork being acquired in 2024 as a companion piece.
Woodhouse's print was based on a scale model of Melbourne in 1838, commissioned by the Melbourne City Council and executed by Justin Drouhet, a French-born engineer employed by the Victorian Railways. Emerging as one of the most popular exhibits in the Centennial International Exhibition of 1888, the scale model was then installed in the Town Hall where it was expected to become ‘one of the most interesting objects for many years to come as instancing the marvellous development of Melbourne.’
Joan Ross was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and now lives in Sydney. In her practice, she often re-works historical images as a form of commentary on the legacy of colonialism in Australia. Incorporating a hand-made aesthetic to her digital reproductions through hand-painting, a signature feature of her work is the use of fluorescent 'hi-vis' yellow as a visual metaphor of colonisation through its association with surveillance, authority and danger.