Design and Art Australia Online

Brisbane-based Torres Strait Islander artist of the Meriam Mir language group, Janice Peacock was born in Mareeba, Queensland in December, 1955. Peacock has always enjoyed making art and learning about art history, something she began while attending Redcliffe State High School from 1969 to 1971. After gaining her Junior High School Certificate in 1971 Peacock worked as a tracer for consulting engineering firms until 1974 and from 1974 until 1978 she worked as an artist for advertising firms in Brisbane.

In 1983 Peacock was awarded an Associate Diploma in Creative Arts from the North Brisbane College of Advanced Education (now known as Queensland University of Technology). Peacock continued her arts education when she was awarded a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art in 2000, a Bachelor of Visual Arts with First Class Honours in Fine Art in 2001 and a Doctor of Visual Arts in 2006 from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University where she gained a postgraduate scholarship award in 2001-2004.

Peacock joined The Campfire Group of artists in Brisbane in 1997 and in 1998 she showed her work in the exhibition 'Ilan Pasin – this is our way Torres Strait Art’, which was the first major Torres Strait Islander exhibition staged at the Cairns Regional Gallery. In 1999 she exhibited as part of a group show, 'Respect: our Grandmothers & Grandfathers’ at Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art. She has continued to exhibit across the country at venues including the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Dell Gallery at the Queensland College of Art and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.

In 2003 Peacock received a scholarship to attend the Banff Centre in Canada to participate in an international arts residency – Communion and Other Conversations: A Thematic Residency of Indigenous Artists on Christianity and Colonialism. Her paintings and three dimensional installations are inspired by Torres Strait Islander traditional artefacts, family history, performance art, global Indigenous cultures, politics, history and resistance to Eurocentricity. Peacock has been a finalist in the 2003 'Kate Challis RAKA National Indigenous Art Award: Places that Name Us’, staged at the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne and she was also a finalist in the 'Theiss Art Prize 2004: Exploring the life, Culture & Landscape of Queensland’ at the Dell Gallery, Griffith University. Peacock, whose work Crates and Traits in the Straits was acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia, has supplemented her artistic income by working in the education system and in 2007 was employed as the Cultural Services Coordinator for the GEO Group Australia Pty Ltd at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre in Wacol, Brisbane.

Writers:

Allas, Tess Note:

Date written:

2007

Last updated:

2011

Status:

peer-reviewed