The Blinman country 1929

This drawing depicts the Blinman country by Hans Heysen. Born in Germany, Heysen emigrated to Australia as a child, where he became known for his landscape paintings of the Australian outback. Heysen's works capture the vastness and beauty of the Australian landscape. However, they often omit the complex history of colonization and its impact on Indigenous communities. The act of landscape painting, while seemingly innocent, carries a loaded history. It is a tradition that has been used to assert ownership and control over land, often erasing the presence and rights of Indigenous peoples. Although, the work is a beautiful rendering of the Australian landscape, it is important to consider the ways in which it reinforces certain narratives about land and ownership. As viewers, we are invited to contemplate our own relationship to the land and our responsibility to acknowledge its complex history.