¹ú²úBT

‘This year, the ER White focused on selecting an Indigenous Australian artist that works with recycled and found materials. After shortlisting a number of artists, our final decision was Yolngu artist Wurrandan Marawili.’

‘The work we have purchased is called Fresh Meets Salt. The canvas is a reclaimed aluminium road sign; with intricate diamond patterns etched into the surface, representing the saltwater estate of Yathikpa where Baru, the ancestral crocodile, entered the sea to escape fire. This concept of the confluence of fresh and salt water also manifests itself at the Falls on the Yarra, a sacred site for our local Wurundjeri Woiwurrung people.

‘We believe that this work is robust, timeless and adaptable to the conditions of college and its connections to Trinity go beyond the boundaries of our gates.’

Izzy Weule (TC 2022), president, purchased by the ER White 2024

2022 ER White
Izzy Weule (President), Leila O'Brien (Secretary), Michelle Clewley (Treasurer), Miles Tawns, Bea Froomes-Houseman, Ravin Desal, Jakob Kinney-Graham

Tasmanian-born illustrator and artist Oslo Davis has a distinctive style, familiar to Melburnians through his work with newspapers or gracing the side of the city’s trams. ER White president Elias Jarvis (TC 2022) explained the group’s intent, saying:

‘The ER White Committee 2023 has eagerly been working towards securing a piece of art which represents the energy and culture of Trinity ... From the beginning of our discussions, the group believed we had an opportunity to acquire a piece which is stylised and representative of our community explicitly.’

Davis’ usual whimsical style gave way to what might be regarded as a portrait of one of the college’s most enduring characters - the College Oak - in an illustration that examples the artistic depth of his practice. In just a few words, in the accompanying haiku poem, Davis has captured central elements recognised by generations of Trinitarians.

Commissioned by the ER White 2023

2023 ER White
Elias Jarvis (President), Emily Shalless (Secretary),Charlie Beggs (Treasurer), Charlie Sutterby, Claudia Clements

As a Wadawurrung woman from Ballarat, one of the ways Deanne Gilson incorporates connections to her ancestral knowledge in this painting is through the use of ceremonial ochres from her country. White ochre is used by the Wadawurrung people to paint their skin for ceremony, and Gilson says that the use of natural ochres in her paintings makes her ‘feel grounded and connected to country.’

Visually, these natural pigments create a rough, almost gritty texture on the surface of the canvas, giving the piece a very organic finish. The use of traditional ochres connects Gilson’s brushstrokes to the bush which inspires her paintings and the natural elements of flora and fauna which she depicts, and the cultural practices of the Wadawurrung people.

This piece is part of Gilson’s larger series of still life paintings, which explores ideas of contrasting and coexisting cultural heritages. By presenting the native Australian flowers and animals in vases through the western convention of still life painting, Gilson plays with ideas of appropriation and conformity of First Nations culture to western standards.

Purchased by the ER White 2022

2022 ER White
Millie a'Beckett (President), Naimisha Talluri (Secretary), John Harley (Treasurer), Daniella Camuglia, Honor Brahimi, Seraphina Nicholls, Elias Jarvis

In a similar way that the 2019 ER White responded to the changing environment of Trinity, the incoming group in 2021 looked to commissioning a work of public sculpture to be installed in the landscape surrounds of the new residential wing. As then president Evie Davidson (TC 2019) reported, 'The crucial basis of the Ross argument lay in its fulfilment of the committee’s original 'mission' to install a piece of outdoor sculpture to celebrate and compliment the new Dorothy Jane Ryall building.'

At the same time, the selection of Lachlan Ross' work echoed those elements that had been a driving force behind the commission of Linford's 'Diversity', in 2019:

'United' is a bold, contemporary work featuring themes of connection, unity, and strength in community. The interplay of two contrasting, textured materials (stainless and corten steel) is striking, and the committee feels the sculpture’s three rings reflect the diverse and interwoven community here at ¹ú²úBT.'

2021 ER White
Evangeline Davidson (President), Hugo Hart (Secretary), Zoe Gillies (Treasurer), Millie a'Beckett, Cassie Lew Fatt, Charley Woodcock

As the college moved towards its most major expansion of residential buildings in almost half a century, increasing the residential student community from 270 up to almost 380, some students viewed the move with an element of hesitation. What would a larger student body look like? Would social cohesiveness be diminished with larger numbers?

In selecting artist William 'Bill' Linford to produce a 'portrait' of the student community in his distinctive style before this marked increase is size, the ER White Society were keen to represent several aspects of what the residential was, and could be aspirationally. It was a diverse community, one that welcome and embraced people of different cultural and other backgrounds, into a close-knit residential family.

It was a community, were students stand shoulder-to-shoulder in support of one another. It was one unified by being a student of Trinity, illustrated by the wearing of college colours.

Commissioned by the ER White 2019

2019 ER White
Alice Chirnside (President), Jonathan Ta (Secretary), Harry Speagle (Treasurer), Sophie Sitch, Cassey Deegan, Charlotte Hartley

Born in Mackay in northern Queensland, Danie Mellor is descended on his mother’s side from the Mamu and Ngadjon peoples of the Atherton Tablelands in northern Queensland. His father’s family arrived in Australia from California in the early 1900s.

Mellor’s signature blue and white palette draws upon Chinoiserie applied to porcelain ware, particularly in the 18th century. Using this particular visual language, he creates an exoticised picture of the Australian rainforest which engages with multiple cultural perspectives and addresses the tensions between European understandings of Australia and Australia’s Indigenous population.

Purchased by the ER White 2018

2018 ER White
Alexander Whittle (President), Alex Kupa, Alex Trett, Emily Harding, Lucy MacLachlan, Isobel Abel

2017 ER White
Sophie Landgren (President), Marli Mathewson (Secretary), Molly Batrouney (Treasurer), Tansy Pereira, Manon Dennison, Liam Strickland

‘We chose the sloth for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we were always interested in the darker toned paintings. The tone and the composition of this particular painting is reminiscent of a traditional portrait style, except Braithwaite uses a sloth - which on a superficial level is quite funny and light hearted.’

‘Yet at the same time the painting, and series in general, also calls attention to some very serious issues related to climate change and environmental conservation.’

‘We were looking for something politically/socially relevant but also easy to appreciate and feel that this painting strikes the balance between interesting, relevant and light hearted.’

Katie Lynch (TC 2015), president, purchased by the ER White 2016

2016 ER White
Katie Lynch (President), Jemima Myer (Secretary), Mary Lamond (Treasurer), Sarah Abell, Isabella Woolcott, Jonty Bean
 

Purchased by the ER White 2015

2015 ER White
Nick Senior (President), Lloyd Miller (Secretary), Sarah van der Post (Treasurer), Yvette Dal Pozzo, Blanka Covic, Lizzie Lamond, Matthew Watts

Following a referendum held in 1999, East Timor gained its independence in 2002 after almost a quarter of a century of Indonesian occupation. Jon Cattapan was commissioned by the Australian War Memorial was Australia’s 63rd Official War Artist in 2008, deploying to the renamed Timor-Leste.

The substantial body of work Cattapan produced from this period explores the use of night vision technology, with its vivid palette of lush greens and amplified, nocturnal light. Dots and cartographic lines are overlaid, a technique Cattapan has used for more than two decades. These hint at the representation of codes, maps and the covert aspects of military communication. Visually, the works stand as seductively beautiful windows that draw the viewer into a deeper engagement with their content.

Cattapan studied art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1975 after having transferring from the first year of a computer science degree. He was Director of the Victorian College of the Arts between 2017 and 2020.

Purchased by the ER White 2014

2014 ER White
Alex Galligan (President), Olivia Baenziger (Secretary), Tiernan Morrison (Treasurer), Jo Roberts, Sarah Ryan, Tyson Holloway-Clarke

Jon Campbell grew up in Melbourne’s western suburb of Altona, after his family immigrated from Northern Ireland in the mid-1960s. As the city expanded in the post-war period, buying a quarter-acre block become the hallmark of the Great Australian Dream. The backyard came to represent a domestic sanctuary, as Campbell recalls:

‘It was an important space for me personally during my formative years. The backyard I grew up in was a classic suburban block and the backyard was an expanse of weedy lawn. Not many trees or shrubs. A tin garage, clothesline, and free-standing BBQ. We would gather in this space to play sport, celebrate birthdays, enjoy BBQs with the neighbours; it was a space to dream.’

The exploration of the backyard has been a central theme across Campbell’s career. In 2021, Campbell was commissioned to produce a large public art installation of the Backyard as part of the Victorian Government’s $1.8 million Western Roads Upgrade. The work was installed near the Duncans Road interchange in Werribee.

Purchased by the ER White 2013

2013 ER White
Alice Coates (President), Charles Kemp (Secretary), Georgina Edward (Treasurer), Camille Liu Nock, Susie Gomm, Lucy Hawker

‘Carla Hanaiah’s works defy simple description. They are vast expressions of the overwhelming beauty of nature and our relationship to its bewildering force but at the same time pay perfect attention to the minutiae of a changing light. The paintings are inspired by the land, and portray a truly sublime beauty.’ 

‘Carla Hananiah grew up with nature as an integral part of her life and as a result her artworks capture a sense of awed belonging to nature rather than being apart from it.’

‘We hope that as you view the works you will lose yourself in their immensity and beauty and appreciate the staggering talent of the young artist who captured this sublime side of so enigmatic a subject as nature.’

Nathan van As (TC 2010), president, purchased by the ER White 2012

2012 ER White
Nathan van As (President), Kat Mills (Secretary), Louise Kelly, James Bounds

‘Carla Hanaiah’s works defy simple description. They are vast expressions of the overwhelming beauty of nature and our relationship to its bewildering force but at the same time pay perfect attention to the minutiae of a changing light. The paintings are inspired by the land, and portray a truly sublime beauty.’ 

‘Carla Hananiah grew up with nature as an integral part of her life and as a result her artworks capture a sense of awed belonging to nature rather than being apart from it.’

‘We hope that as you view the works you will lose yourself in their immensity and beauty and appreciate the staggering talent of the young artist who captured this sublime side of so enigmatic a subject as nature.’

Nathan van As (TC 2010), president, purchased by the ER White 2012

2012 ER White
Nathan van As (President), Kat Mills (Secretary), Louise Kelly, James Bounds

'Polixeni Papapetrou was a Melbourne-based photographer whose works examined the relationship between history, contemporary culture and identity. Originally trained as a lawyer, she went on to graduate with a Master of Arts, RMIT University and in 2007 with a PhD, Monash University.

In Papapetrou’s early work, she explored the imaginative space that children inhabit, the main protagonists in this being her own two children, Olympia and Solomon. However as her children grew older, Papapetrou recognized the shifting paradigms in the life of her children - as they grew older, their experience of the world was shifting from the imaginative interior world of dress-ups and make-believe into a more pragmatic experience with the world outside.

It was this shift that was the catalyst for the transcendence of Papapetrou’s work from the realm of fantasy into the natural world: 'This is when I turned to the Australian landscape to tell certain stories about growing up. I haven’t portrayed the Australian landscape as a series of vistas, but have used it to explore narratives about how children animate—and exist in—nature and how nature accepts them.'

The two works that the ER White Club have selected are from 'Between Worlds', a collection of photographs of her children and their friends dressed as animals functioning within their own liminal worlds. Amidst the stunning scenery of her photographs the children perform identities other than their own, liberating them from the stereotypes that contemporary culture projects upon them.

In order to emancipate the children from the rigid frameworks imposed upon them by modern society, Papapetrou creates anxiety by blurring the lines of what we immediately recognize and what we do not. She constructs a creature that is on the one hand recognizable yet simultaneously hybrid – a kind of child-animal that reflects the parallels she perceives in their respective worlds. The animals depicted in the photographs appear to have been domesticated and trained to serve humans - the hard working pigs in The Harvesters seem to care for the land, whilst one feels that they are in safe hands with the benevolent rabbits in The Loners.

Through their performance in Papapetrou’s photographs, the children transgress boundaries; they trend the line between fantasy and theatre, mythology and reality, archetype and play, male and female, child and adult, and animal and human. As art critic Susan Bright contends in her article on Papapetrou’s Between Worlds collection, 'Like fairy stories, Papapetrou uses absurdity to make symbolic sense of world she struggles to understand. It is that careful balance of autobiography, collective anxiety mixed up with wonderful and almost carefree fantasy that reverberates throughout the series and the combination makes for bold and unsettling works.'

Lucy Macdonald (TC 2010), president, purchased by the ER White 2011

2011 ER White
Lucy MacDonald (President), Calum Alexander, Adelaide Myer

'Polixeni Papapetrou was a Melbourne-based photographer whose works examined the relationship between history, contemporary culture and identity. Originally trained as a lawyer, she went on to graduate with a Master of Arts, RMIT University and in 2007 with a PhD, Monash University.

In Papapetrou’s early work, she explored the imaginative space that children inhabit, the main protagonists in this being her own two children, Olympia and Solomon. However as her children grew older, Papapetrou recognized the shifting paradigms in the life of her children - as they grew older, their experience of the world was shifting from the imaginative interior world of dress-ups and make-believe into a more pragmatic experience with the world outside.

It was this shift that was the catalyst for the transcendence of Papapetrou’s work from the realm of fantasy into the natural world: 'This is when I turned to the Australian landscape to tell certain stories about growing up. I haven’t portrayed the Australian landscape as a series of vistas, but have used it to explore narratives about how children animate—and exist in—nature and how nature accepts them.'

The two works that the ER White Club have selected are from 'Between Worlds', a collection of photographs of her children and their friends dressed as animals functioning within their own liminal worlds. Amidst the stunning scenery of her photographs the children perform identities other than their own, liberating them from the stereotypes that contemporary culture projects upon them.

In order to emancipate the children from the rigid frameworks imposed upon them by modern society, Papapetrou creates anxiety by blurring the lines of what we immediately recognize and what we do not. She constructs a creature that is on the one hand recognizable yet simultaneously hybrid – a kind of child-animal that reflects the parallels she perceives in their respective worlds. The animals depicted in the photographs appear to have been domesticated and trained to serve humans - the hard working pigs in The Harvesters seem to care for the land, whilst one feels that they are in safe hands with the benevolent rabbits in The Loners.

Through their performance in Papapetrou’s photographs, the children transgress boundaries; they trend the line between fantasy and theatre, mythology and reality, archetype and play, male and female, child and adult, and animal and human. As art critic Susan Bright contends in her article on Papapetrou’s Between Worlds collection, 'Like fairy stories, Papapetrou uses absurdity to make symbolic sense of world she struggles to understand. It is that careful balance of autobiography, collective anxiety mixed up with wonderful and almost carefree fantasy that reverberates throughout the series and the combination makes for bold and unsettling works.'

Lucy Macdonald (TC 2010), president, purchased by the ER White 2011

2011 ER White
Lucy MacDonald (President), Calum Alexander, Adelaide Myer

Purchased by the ER White 2010

2010 ER White
Lexie Fish (President)

Purchased by the ER White 2010

2010 ER White
Lexie Fish (President)

Purchased by the ER White 2010

2010 ER White
Lexie Fish (President)

British born artist John Wolseley settled in Australia in 1976 and has painted and travelled all over the continent, searching ‘to discover how we dwell and move within landscape’. Much of his recent work has been about the evolution of the earth’s surface through continental drift, as well as inland Australia’s great cycles of fire and regeneration.

John’s work - which is represented in all state and federal galleries and in collections around the world - records in minute detail aspects of the environments he encounters, the structure of the land, flora and fauna, and the imprint of human habitation on it. His interaction with the wilderness displays a personal reverence for the earth and the planet.

When the students on the 2009 E R White Committee - which each year selects contemporary Australian works to add to the College’s collection - were seeking ‘a painting to which students could relate’, Wolseley’s themes of sustainability, the importance of land and the renewal of the Australian outback, resonated strongly.

Unveiling the three selected works at a Fireside Chat given by the artist on 10 March this year, 2009 E R White President Laura Chalk explained their choice:

‘Trinity has a large population of rural students and a growing population of Indigenous students who, we hoped, would identify with these works. In a more general sense, too, Trinity is home to an ever-changing body of students, all of whom develop a special relationship with the College’s land and buildings. We hope this thread is evident and that students enjoy the artworks.’

Purchased by the ER White 2009

2009 ER White
Laura Chalk (President), Jack Lang (Treasurer), Allyse Wafer, Georgie Thompson, Chloe Bradbury, Sophie Menikides

British born artist John Wolseley settled in Australia in 1976 and has painted and travelled all over the continent, searching ‘to discover how we dwell and move within landscape’. Much of his recent work has been about the evolution of the earth’s surface through continental drift, as well as inland Australia’s great cycles of fire and regeneration.

John’s work - which is represented in all state and federal galleries and in collections around the world - records in minute detail aspects of the environments he encounters, the structure of the land, flora and fauna, and the imprint of human habitation on it. His interaction with the wilderness displays a personal reverence for the earth and the planet.

When the students on the 2009 E R White Committee - which each year selects contemporary Australian works to add to the College’s collection - were seeking ‘a painting to which students could relate’, Wolseley’s themes of sustainability, the importance of land and the renewal of the Australian outback, resonated strongly.

Unveiling the three selected works at a Fireside Chat given by the artist on 10 March this year, 2009 E R White President Laura Chalk explained their choice:

‘Trinity has a large population of rural students and a growing population of Indigenous students who, we hoped, would identify with these works. In a more general sense, too, Trinity is home to an ever-changing body of students, all of whom develop a special relationship with the College’s land and buildings. We hope this thread is evident and that students enjoy the artworks.’

Purchased by the ER White 2009

2009 ER White
Laura Chalk (President), Jack Lang (Treasurer), Allyse Wafer, Georgie Thompson, Chloe Bradbury, Sophie Menikides

British born artist John Wolseley settled in Australia in 1976 and has painted and travelled all over the continent, searching ‘to discover how we dwell and move within landscape’. Much of his recent work has been about the evolution of the earth’s surface through continental drift, as well as inland Australia’s great cycles of fire and regeneration.

John’s work - which is represented in all state and federal galleries and in collections around the world - records in minute detail aspects of the environments he encounters, the structure of the land, flora and fauna, and the imprint of human habitation on it. His interaction with the wilderness displays a personal reverence for the earth and the planet.

When the students on the 2009 E R White Committee - which each year selects contemporary Australian works to add to the College’s collection - were seeking ‘a painting to which students could relate’, Wolseley’s themes of sustainability, the importance of land and the renewal of the Australian outback, resonated strongly.

Unveiling the three selected works at a Fireside Chat given by the artist on 10 March this year, 2009 E R White President Laura Chalk explained their choice:

‘Trinity has a large population of rural students and a growing population of Indigenous students who, we hoped, would identify with these works. In a more general sense, too, Trinity is home to an ever-changing body of students, all of whom develop a special relationship with the College’s land and buildings. We hope this thread is evident and that students enjoy the artworks.’

Purchased by the ER White 2009

2009 ER White
Laura Chalk (President), Jack Lang (Treasurer), Allyse Wafer, Georgie Thompson, Chloe Bradbury, Sophie Menikides

Nora Wompi lived most of her live as something of a nomad. She was born about 1935, at Pingakurangu rock hole near Kunawarritji - Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route, a track that runs from Halls Creek in the Kimberley region of Western Australia to Wiluna in the mid-west region.

As a young girl, she would travel north with the drovers to Billiluna and Balgo, learning the intricacies and forms of the landscapes.

'My mother used to leave us alone, my brother and I [when she went hunting]. I used to cry for my mother to carry me around, but my brother would help look after me. My brother used to carry me, leave me in the shade and wet my hair, and I would wait for my parents to come home with meat. We would wait and see my mother coming with food, and my brother would run to our parents to get the meat while I was sitting in the shade waiting. We used to share food together as a family

[Later] my brother got sick and died and my other brother went north and passed away. I was alone [with my parents]. I stayed with my family and got bigger, and then I went north [to Balgo] when I was old enough to hunt for my own meat.' - (Nora Wompi, as translated by Ngalangka Nola Taylor)

The parallel lines in the two works by her acquired by the ER White in 2008 represent the sand hills that dominate the area.

Wompi was a prolific painter and evocative storyteller, with deep knowledge about the Country surrounding her home at Kunawarritji. For many years she painted alongside Nungabar with both Martumili and Warlayirti Artists. Wompi was highly regarded for her beautifully etheral style. Her work has been exhibited in galleries internationally and throughout Australia, and acquired by the National Museum of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Purchased by the ER White 2008

2008 ER White
Edwina Stawell (President), Tehanee Bardolia (Secretary), Grace Davenport, James Miller

Nora Wompi lived most of her live as something of a nomad. She was born about 1935, at Pingakurangu rock hole near Kunawarritji - Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route, a track that runs from Halls Creek in the Kimberley region of Western Australia to Wiluna in the mid-west region.

As a young girl, she would travel north with the drovers to Billiluna and Balgo, learning the intricacies and forms of the landscapes.

'My mother used to leave us alone, my brother and I [when she went hunting]. I used to cry for my mother to carry me around, but my brother would help look after me. My brother used to carry me, leave me in the shade and wet my hair, and I would wait for my parents to come home with meat. We would wait and see my mother coming with food, and my brother would run to our parents to get the meat while I was sitting in the shade waiting. We used to share food together as a family

[Later] my brother got sick and died and my other brother went north and passed away. I was alone [with my parents]. I stayed with my family and got bigger, and then I went north [to Balgo] when I was old enough to hunt for my own meat.' - (Nora Wompi, as translated by Ngalangka Nola Taylor)

The parallel lines in the two works by her acquired by the ER White in 2008 represent the sand hills that dominate the area.

Wompi was a prolific painter and evocative storyteller, with deep knowledge about the Country surrounding her home at Kunawarritji. For many years she painted alongside Nungabar with both Martumili and Warlayirti Artists. Wompi was highly regarded for her beautifully etheral style. Her work has been exhibited in galleries internationally and throughout Australia, and acquired by the National Museum of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Purchased by the ER White 2008

2008 ER White
Edwina Stawell (President), Tehanee Bardolia (Secretary), Grace Davenport, James Miller

The 2007 ER White Committee was keen to purchase art connected with Minyerri - the Indigenous community in the Northern Territory which resident students would visit annually - and the Alawa people of that region.

After working as a stockman, Gudabi settled at Ngukurr, a former Mission Station on the Roper River, and began painting in the late 1980s. He would often paint collaboratively with his wife, Moima, a founding artist of the Ngundungunya Association of Artists Ngukurr, and together they developed a lively and energetic style.

Gudabi was a senior elder of the Alawa people and highly regarded within his community. Although the pair painted together for a relatively short period before Gudabi’s death, they developed a significant reputation.

Purchased by the ER White 2007

2007 ER White
Hugo Lamb (President)

The 2007 ER White Committee was keen to purchase art connected with Minyerri - the Indigenous community in the Northern Territory which resident students would visit annually - and the Alawa people of that region.

After working as a stockman, Gudabi settled at Ngukurr, a former Mission Station on the Roper River, and began painting in the late 1980s. He would often paint collaboratively with his wife, Moima, a founding artist of the Ngundungunya Association of Artists Ngukurr, and together they developed a lively and energetic style.

Gudabi was a senior elder of the Alawa people and highly regarded within his community. Although the pair painted together for a relatively short period before Gudabi’s death, they developed a significant reputation.

Purchased by the ER White 2007

2007 ER White
Hugo Lamb (President)

Anne Zahalka is one of Australia's most respected photographic artists, having held more than 40 solo exhibitions and been curated into over 140 group exhibitions.

Strangers in a Strange Land, Pinnacles Desert depicts three young Asian women dressed in traditional Japanese kimono, their backs to the view, amidst the surreal desert landscape of the Pinnacles Desert in Western Australia. Like the ER White's acquisition the previous year of artist Guan Wei, Zahalka's work explores themes of cultural dislocation and unsettling experiences of unfamiliarity.

Art critic Robert Nelson (and husband of the late Polixeni Papapetrou, also represented in the ER White Collection), wrote of the work:

'You intuit that the air-conditioned bus is revving nearby. You don't experience the landscape as sublime, but rather a funny place commissioned for spectacle. In fact, it's a sacred place now co-opted by an industry.'

'The three figures look anomalous only because you think of the desert as extensively empty or sparsely populated by exceptional people with bush knowledge. Now that there are three richly attired urbane women in the field, you're reminded that all strange or picturesque locations belong to the economy.'

In the context of ¹ú²úBT, the acquisition of Zahalka's by the ER White perhaps spoke into more internal aspects at college, among them the integration of international student communities across the Australian university sector and equally an empathy for the disorientating experience that it often is to be a 'stranger in a strange land.'

Purchased by the ER White 2006

2006 ER White
Unknown - if this was you, let us know! alumni@trinity.unimelb.edu.au

Chinese-born Guan Wei emigrated to Australia in 1989, following the events that unfolded at Tiananmen Square that year. His work has explored various themes but often touches on his personal experiences of migration and the continuing political debates around the arrival of refugees to Australia by boats.

'Ned Kelly hid in a fishing boat and dodged policemen chasing him' in many ways explores this cultural dislocation for Wei, taking the significant Australian mythologising that surrounds the Kelly Outbreak (1878-1880) and setting it within a traditional southern Chinese landscape. The main protagonist, Kelly, is barely visible, hidden under a shelter aboard a small fishing boat as Australian colonial police search the nearby hills.

The work could be read in a number of ways; a 'boat person' being pursued and hunted by authority figures, or perhaps hints at his own witnessed experiences in Beijing during 1989. Painted in 2004, shortly after the 'Children overboard' scandal in Australian federal politics that demonised refugees arriving by boat, the work is one of a number of similar produced by Wei at the time, that explored the Kelly story through the lens of Chinese landscape paintings.

Purchased by the ER White 2005

2005 ER White
Laura Cashman (President), Jacinta Lewis, Mala Tarrell, Stephanie Brotchie, Verena Tan, Vanessa Ilicic

Purchased by the ER White 2003

2003 ER White
Amy Devereux (President)

Purchased by the ER White 2002

2002 ER White
Huw Hallam (President), Amy Devereux

Purchased by the ER White 2002

2002 ER White
Huw Hallam (President), Amy Devereux

Purchased by the ER White 2001

2001 ER White
Imogen Pullar (President), Alison Hanly, Nick Jacometti, Catherine Matthews

Purchased by the ER White 2000

2000 ER White
Sarah Nosworthy (President), Alison Hanley, Nick Jacometti, Catherine Matthews

Purchased by the ER White 2000

2000 ER White
Sarah Nosworthy (President), Alison Hanley, Nick Jacometti, Catherine Matthews

Purchased by the ER White 1997

1997 ER White
Anna Gribble (Co-President), Nik Sakellaropoulos (Co-President)

Purchased by the ER White 1997

1997 ER White
Anna Gribble (Co-President), Nik Sakellaropoulos (Co-President)

Purchased by the ER White 1996

1996 ER White
Tim Lane (President), Elspeth Fairlie, U-Eng Ng

Purchased by the ER White 1994

1994 ER White
Matthew McGinity (President), Catherine Blamey (Secretary), Jason Oates, U-Eng Ng

In 1993, under the presidentship of Andrea Carr (TC 1991), the three-year-old ER White Society was 'determined to break new ground', commissioning a bronze sculpture by established Melbourne-based artist, Pamela Irving. Irving was best known at the time for her public artwork known as 'Larry La Trobe', a case bronze dog located in Swanston Street, in Melbourne.

Paying homage to the expanse of lawn in the centre of Trinity known as the Bulpadock - a truncation of 'bull padock' which, until the early 1960s, housed the college's herd of dairy cows - the ER White commissioned Irving to produce a small, bronze bull. Invested in the process, the group took an interest in all aspect of the work's creation, from the initial concept through to the moulding and casting of the final work.

Installed on Sunday, 20 March 1994 before a large gathering of students and parents and invited guests who had contributed to the artistic life of Trinity, Mrs Georgina Barraclough (E.R. White's granddaughter) unveiled Irving's 'Bulpadock Bull'. It has remained gazing out across the Bulpadock ever since.

Commissioned by the ER White 1993

1993 ER White
Andrea Carr (President), Catherine Blamey (Secretary), Ralph Ashton, Matthew McGinity, Claire Little, Jason OAtes, Claire Alexander, Julie-Anne Forster, Ann Shoebridge, Curtis Saxton, Tim Richter, Christina McLeish

The acquisition of this particular painting remained something of a mystery for many years, and details of the artist still remain unknown.

It was acquired by ER White president John Kim, on behalf of the committee, quite late in the year. Andrea Carr, the incoming president of the group for 1993, recalled Kim asking her to assist with the painting's install in the Cripps Middle Common Room, in upper Bishops' Building.

The college Art Committee minutes make no mention of the work's purchase and, unsigned or dated, there has been little to identify either the artist or the gallery from whom it was acquired. When a catalogue of the college's art collections was produced in 2001, the work was not including upon the ER White acquisitions owing to the ambiguous nature of its purchase.

The college welcomes hearing from anyone who may recognise the work or the artist involved.

Purchased by the ER White 1992

1992 ER White
John Kim (President), Emma, Templeton, Ronald Selkirk, Sam Morley, Alicia Darvall, Lisa Gorton, Nick Blamey, Sarah Geroge (artist-in-residence), Georgina Barraclough (ER White family representative) 

Purchased by the ER White 1991

1991 ER White
Fleur Johns (Co-President), Nicholas Cox (Co-President), Christie Kimpton (President; left-mid year), Lucy Wilson, Susie King (TCAC representative)

Purchased by the ER White 1991

1991 ER White
Fleur Johns (Co-President), Nicholas Cox (Co-President), Christie Kimpton (President; left-mid year), Lucy Wilson, Susie King (TCAC representative)

Purchased by the ER White 1990

1990 ER White
James Ramsden (President), Stephen Grimwade (Secretary), Bruce Sutherland (TCAC representative), Susan Brennan, Susie King, Melissa Grey, Georgina Barraclough (ER White family representative)

Purchased by the ER White 1990

1990 ER White
James Ramsden (President), Stephen Grimwade (Secretary), Bruce Sutherland (TCAC representative), Susan Brennan, Susie King, Melissa Grey, Georgina Barraclough (ER White family representative)

Purchased by the ER White 1990

1990 ER White
James Ramsden (President), Stephen Grimwade (Secretary), Bruce Sutherland (TCAC representative), Susan Brennan, Susie King, Melissa Grey, Georgina Barraclough (ER White family representative)

Purchased by the ER White 1990

1990 ER White
James Ramsden (President), Stephen Grimwade (Secretary), Bruce Sutherland (TCAC Representative), Susan Brennan, Susie King, Melissa Grey, Georgina Barraclough (ER White family representative)