Judy Watson is an Indigenous artist whose matrilineal family is from country in North West Queensland. She co-represented Australia in the 1997 Venice Biennale and won the Moet & Chandon Fellowship in 1995. Her work is held in major Australian and International collections including the National Gallery of Australia and all Australian State Galleries; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, St Louis Art Museum, USA, and the British Museum, London as well as private collections. She has exhibited widely over the past 20 years. A major survey exhibition sacred ground beating heart was exhibited at the John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University Western Australia in 2003 and at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane in 2004. A version of the show was toured by Asialink in 2004 to Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. It was also exhibited at the University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane and toured regional venues in Australia.
Judy Watson has received major public art commissions including – wurreka (2000), a fifty metre etched zinc wall for the Melbourne Museum; walama forecourt (2000), a sculptural installation of woven steel screens and upturned bronze dilly bags at Sydney International Airport; ngarrn-gi land/law (2002), a fifty metre etched zinc wall at the Victorian County Court, Melbourne; heart/land/river (2004), Brisbane Magistrates Court; fire and water (2007), a bronze, granite, steel, reeds and sound piece installed at Reconciliation Place, Canberra. She is one of eight Indigenous artists commissioned to make work incorporated in the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, which opened in 2006. Also in 2006 her artist’s book a preponderance of aboriginal blood was awarded the works on paper section at the 23rd NATSIA Awards in Darwin and she was presented with the 2006 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award held at the National Gallery of Victoria.
Judy Watson blood language a monograph by Judy Watson and Louise Martin-Chew was published by The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing in 2009.
Judy Watson Heron Island was show at UQ Art Museum, University of Queensland, 9 October – 22 November 2009. www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au
heron island suite (2009/2010) was exhibited at grahame galleries + editions 29 May – 4 July 2010