Sandra Hill – “Homemaker # 7 – Cake Making”, 2012, oil on linen, 76 x 91cm. Purchased 2012. Murdoch University Art Collection.

I first encountered the powerful art of esteemed Noongar artist Sandra Hill during my first semester of high school after migrating to Australia in 2019. My art teacher suggested I do some online research about Sandra Hill as I may find her artworks an interesting focus for my portfolio inspiration. Hill’s painting titled Homemaker #4 was one of the first paintings I discovered via the Art Gallery of Western Australia’s website.

Hill’s celebrated Homemaker painting series reflects on her life experiences and those of her sister, mother, aunty and grandmother, all of whom were Stolen Generation survivors. Each painting in the Homemaker series depicts a Noongar woman dressed in a booka (kangaroo-skin cloak) in a brightly coloured domestic scene, along with white people rendered in grey tones.

Before too long, I found other examples of Hill’s thought-provoking art on the web, as I continued research for my final ATAR Fine Arts project. The artworks that captivated me the most, were the other paintings from Hill’s celebrated Homemaker series. One particular painting that caught my attention was Homemaker #7 Cake Making, which is found in the Murdoch University Art Collection.

In Homemaker # 7 - Cake Making, the female protagonist is presented in a kitchen setting with three white women who are decorating a cake. This artwork was inspired by Hill’s experiences as a child, which she spent in foster care after being forcibly removed from her Aboriginal mother. Hill recalls not being allowed to take part in cake making as a child, which she believed was because of her dark skin.

In this painting, the young Aboriginal woman is depicted sitting on the sidelines, excluded from the cake making ritual. Rather than watching on, she stares directly and assertively at the viewer. The presence of the booka, which cloaks and protects her, also serves as a powerful symbol of cultural defiance and represents her stance in preserving and maintaining the traditions of her Noongar culture.

As a First Nations activist artist, Sandra Hill’s paintings have become a powerful gateway to a deeper understanding of Australia’s troubled history regarding the mistreatment of Aboriginal people. As a recent arrival in Australia, these injustices were previously unknown to me. Growing up in Indonesia, I had little understanding of Australia’s uncomfortable past. Many of my classes back home in Jakarta centred around Indonesian, British and European-centric histories. Australian history was only lightly brushed over, and disturbing topics such as the Stolen Generation were never mentioned. Upon arrival in Australia, I observed that an immense amount of shameful history was rarely discussed. However, Sandra Hill’s artwork has never shied away from truth telling and giving a voice to a history often silenced.

Another reason I was so drawn to Sandra Hill’s Homemaker series is her shrewd appropriation of the distinctive imagery depicted in Anglo-Saxon mid-century magazines including pastel colours, plastered smiles, and over-the-top cinched waists. Sandra Hill incorporates this style in her paintings but cleverly manipulates the imagery, flipping it on its head.  It is powerful to see her story of trauma, grief, and isolation so powerfully portrayed.

I was overwhelmed to view Homemaker # 7 - Cake Making in person on the first day of my internship at Murdoch University Gallery and I’m sure my enthusiasm wasn’t entirely contained! I had never seen Sandra Hill’s art in person before, so seeing this painting flooded my mind with memories from years gone by. A period which formed a deep-rooted interest in art. Until that point, I had never truly appreciated the powerful experience of viewing an artwork in the flesh opposed to seeing a reproduction in book or on a screen. I believe seeing Homemaker # 7 - Cake Making really shifted that perspective for me and this newfound appreciation for the painting calmed any lingering nerves I had in regard to the internship I was about to undertake.

About Leilaina (Ash) Gunter

Leilaina (Ash) Gunter is a Batak-Indonesian and Australian student born in Jakarta, Indonesia. In 2019, Ash immigrated to Perth to complete her remaining Secondary School studies in Western Australia and began her Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing, and History at Murdoch University in 2022. Ash frequently volunteers at Bennett Brook Railway and Rail Heritage WA, assisting in the archives, curation, planning and promotion of events. During her final year, she was offered an internship at Murdoch University's Art Collection to pursue her interest in museum curation.