Michael Eather and friends
Michael Eather is the consummate collaborator.His long time association with the Campfire Group is but one example of his ability to work with others in situations which for many artists, for whom 'individual expression' is paramount, are fraught with difficulty . Successful collaboration requires a certain forfeiture of ego as individual contributions are absorbed by the group. Eather's collaborations cross cultures, and further, they cross the diversities which exist within those cultures. The seamlessness with which the works of many other artists are incorporated into Skin & Division suggests that Eather's method of constructing the personal is reflective of a broad range of social and political relations.
To assume that Michael Eather's collaborative work is entirely without difficulty, however, would be to deny the processes and inevitable differences which often take effect in producing work of this nature. The fact of collaboration often tells us little of the act of collaboration. We the audience, in concentrating on a finished work, are (usually) somewhat distanced from the making of that work. Although Skin & Division appears to emphasise the result rather than the process, we are constantly aware of the presence of other hands.
The significance of the Campfire Group within the contemporary Australian art scene has been substantial as its modus operandi is as much about a way of working as it is about finished work. Starting out in 1990 with Balance, a show at the Queensland Art Gallery, this group of renegade artists, ' ... combined three types of art: "traditional" Aboriginal art, works by white artists which related to Aboriginal culture, and, what had previously been neglected by the art establishment: urban Aboriginal art.'[1] In bringing together... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline