Click to enlarge1954 – 2022
- Region
- South-East Australia
- Community
- Ngarrindjeri
- Language group
- Ngarrindjeri; Tanganekald
Exposed II, 2019
oil on canvas
76 cm x 106 cm
$4,200
- Provenance
- Purchased directly from the artist as part of his representational relationship with Adrian
- Artwork story
- Born in 1954 to a Ngurrindjeri woman of the Tangani people from the Coorong in South Australia, and a Czechoslovakian father from Prague, Jacob Stengle was taken from his mother when 3 years old and became part of South Australia's 'Stolen Generation'. He was placed in the United Aborigines Mission’s Colebrook Home, in Eden Hills, SA. Having showed a great talent for visual art from an early age he immersed himself in it as a means of escaping the harsh realities of life under the guidance of ene of the superintendents at the home , who was a practicing oil painter. Over the following 45 years Jacob supported himself through painting. A chance meeting with the London-born painter of Dreaming stories , Ainslie Roberts, began a life long friendship through which Jacob met a circle of practicing artists while he lived as an itinerant drifter. In this work the artist has portrayed a poor Irish immigrant naked whist being attacked by swooping Magpies and vainly tending to her flower garden. It suggests that she has abandoned ‘colonial’ beliefs, assumptions, worries and desires in order to embrace the natural world in her adopted country. Yet she is an 'introduced species' and is in fact planting introduced food plants and flowers. The emus and kangaroos have eaten her food plants and the cow is now eating her flowers. The image poses a question. Is she working with or against nature? Her intentions may be pure, but she is rendered naked by her failed intentions. Jacob's works were exhibited in 5 solo exhibitions between 1985 and 2010 and and he participated in 4 group shows between 2009 and his death in 2022, many of which were held through the Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide. During this time he has been a finalist in the National Aboriginal Art Award and the National Heritage Art Award. Jacob’s works are held in the permanent collections of Parliament House, Canberra, the South Australian Museum, Flinders University Gallery, Australian National Maritime Museum, and The National Gallery of Australia, Holmes a Court collection and the Australian Embassy in South Korea.