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Muruwari artist Shirley Angus was born in Bass Hill, Sydney. She attended school in Albury on the NSW/Victorian border and then trained as a nurse, working at the Albury Base Hospital. After she married, Angus moved to Victoria and in 1974 began a 12 year career as a trainer in human relations. Later in life Angus worked for the Victorian Public Service, based at the then Rural Water Corporation in Armadale. Although she studied tonal painting at the Sherbrooke Art Society in Melbourne during her career as a trainer, it was only after she studied art and design part-time for five years at Wantirna TAFE during the 1990s that she began to regard herself as an artist. While she was a TAFE student she was invited to participate in an exhibition held at the Botany Municipal Council in Sydney in 1993. The work she submitted, which consisted of a self-portrait with the words 'terra nullius’ stamped across her face, received an exhibition award. The following year, Angus participated in the 2nd 'Art of Place’ Heritage Art Award Exhibition held at Old Parliament House in Canberra. She went on to participate in the 3rd and 4th 'Art of Place’ Exhibitions in 1996 and 1998 respectively, but lung cancer surgery in 2000 prevented her from contributing work to the final 'Art of Place' Exhibition in that year.

Since the late 1990s, Angus has participated in a number of group exhibitions in Victoria, including 'Sense of Place’ at Maroondah Gallery in 2002, and 'CON-SENT-TRICK SIR-KILLS’ at the Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne, in 2003. Her work was exhibited as part of the 2006 'Tribal Expressions’ showcase of Victorian Indigenous Arts at The Arts Centre in Melbourne, and in 2007 her painting Tracks round Gibber Country was commended for the Deadly Art Award at the Victorian Indigenous Art Awards. Her work is in the collections of the Koorie Heritage Trust, La Trobe University, Wantirna TAFE and the Howard Florey Institute.

Angus has approached art-making as a means to express her passionately held views on the social justice issues faced by Indigenous Australians. As someone whose childhood was marked by poverty and racism, and who has faced a number of obstacles in her adult life, these issues are often of great personal relevance. The importance of art within Angus’s deepening philosophical and spiritual approach to human experience is conveyed in her statement that creative activity “turns an experience of near destruction into part of the life of survival, reconciling the writer/artists and making the product of the ordeal available to others to understand” (personal correspondence with the artist). Angus has worked across the mediums of watercolour, ink, oils, acrylic paints and etching, and has recently made use of ochres in her paintings as a result of a residency at Burrinja Gallery in Upwey, Victoria, in 2007. She has two daughters, the youngest of whom, Jane Harrison, is a renowned playwright whose productions include Stolen (1998) and Rainbow’s End (2005). The artist now lives in Upper Fern Tree Gully, an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne.

References:
Title: '? Lost and Found: A Shared Search for Belonging’ exhibition catalogue, p. 6
Year: 2001
Author: Geia, Jacqui (ed)
Published: City of Melbourne, Melbourne

Reference:
Title: Tribal Expressions
Year: 2006
Published: Koori Business Network, Melbourne, Vic., p.64
Reference:
Title: Victorian Indigenous Arts Awards 2007 catalogue
Year: 2007
Published: Arts Victoria, Melbourne, Vic., p.22
Reference:
Title: Angus, Shirley – artist’s statement and other materials
Year: 2008
Summary:
Muruwari artist based in Victoria whose works are predominantly concerned with confronting racism and addressing Indigenous social justice issues.

Writers:

Fisher, Laura

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

Status:

peer-reviewed