#garingbal

Dale Harding

The Leap/Watershead

2017

ochre on linen

180 x 240cm

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Tate

Acquired 2019

Notes: Harding is from the Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal people of central and western Queensland, and the Ghungalu red ochre and the Garingbal light ochre he has used in The Leap/Watershead are drawn from these lands. Harding has blown the ochres onto the linen canvas, adopting a painting technique used in the rock art galleries in the sandstone escarpments of Carnarvon Gorge, in central Queensland. Harding has described how the physical effort of using his breath so intensively left him exhausted, and he was unable to complete the task he had set for himself. Upon seeing the angular form that emerged from the haze of pigment, Harding was reminded of the form of Blackdown Tableland – a sandstone plateau of cliffs, gorges and waterfalls that rises from the plains below. The title of the work refers to the life-giving significance of this land, where the headwaters of major central Queensland river systems spring. The double-barrelled title refers to another landform of historical significance; The Leap, a locality in the Mackay region which was the site of a massacre of Aboriginal people in 1867. Fleeing from the rifles of the Queensland Native Police Force, the group leapt to their deaths from the cliff edge of Mount Mandarana.