Design and Art Australia Online

Vernon Graham (also known as Taraba), Palawa photographer, illustrator and craftsman, was born in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1955. Along with his sister and three brothers, he spent his early childhood in Finley, in the Riverina district of New South Wales. When he was seven years of age, his family moved to Flinders Island in the Furneaux Group of Islands off the north-east tip of Tasmania. As a teenager, Vernon embarked on a career as a fisherman and skipper that lasted for over 20 years. In 1994 he achieved an Associate Diploma of Fine Arts in Photography at the University of Tasmania in Launceston, and since that time he has been involved in a number of exhibitions. These have included “Trouwerner“ (the Palawa name for Tasmania) at the Long Boat Gallery in Hobart (1996); “Taking Our Place” curated by Vicki West at the University Gallery, Launceston (2001); and “Native Title Business”, which toured nationally between 2002 and 2005. Vernon’s photographs and drawings were used to illustrate two school curriculum texts: Jacaranda SOSE: Studies of Society and Environment (1996) and the Jacaranda Primary Atlas: Studies of Society and Environment (1997); as well as the book Taraba: Tasmanian Aboriginal Stories (1997).

Besides his photographic work, Vernon has crafted a number of cultural objects that reflect, as Amanda Reynolds has written in the National Museum of Australia publication Keeping Culture, a “determination to re-empower masculine culture” in Aboriginal Tasmania (2006, p.40). These include traditional tools such as digging sticks, spears and shields, musical instruments, and a miniature canoe, all of which have been created from found materials. A number of such objects have been acquired, along with some of Vernon’s photographic works, by the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

Vernon was inspired to become an artist by his love for his mother, Lois Farley (nee Green), who passed away in 1989. Lois was a poet who wrote about the lives of the Palawa people and the beauty of their island homes. Vernon’s creative practice is informed by his knowledge of, and sense of responsibility for the Aboriginal heritage of Flinders Island and other parts of Tasmania. In the 1990s he began working as an Aboriginal heritage officer and consultant and continued to do so for a range of government bodies and private sector development projects, which allowed him to explore and manage the welfare of important sites across Tasmania. He has therefore undertaken custodianship duties in Tasmania, both professionally and as an artist creatively reclaiming traditional, functional and cultural objects as a craftsman, and honouring the Aboriginal presence within the environment as a photographer. In a 2008 conversation with the author, Vernon spoke of the inspiration he drew from the remarkable historic art sites to be found in the Aboriginal heritage areas that he managed, and described his life as a cultural heritage officer and his life as an artist as deeply interconnected. His childhood memories of his grandfather teaching him about the food to be found in the bush and the sea, and his participation in the annual mutton-bird harvest (a long-standing tradition for Aboriginal families and communities in the Furneaux Islands), have also been formative of the artist’s sense of the continuity of Aboriginal belonging within Tasmania.

In 2008 Vernon was living in Launceston with his wife Kaylene Graham. At the time of writing, Vernon and Kaylene had five children and four grandchildren.

Writers:

Fisher, LauraNote: in consultation with the artist

Date written:

2011

Last updated:

2011

Status:

peer-reviewed