Talking Deadly with Travis De Vries

In the first event of the series, Travis talks about his artwork Tear it Down, a digital drawing acquired by the Australian Museum which depicts Aboriginal activists pulling down the Captain Cook statue in Hyde Park. The artwork forms part of a graphic novel study. In his artist’s statement, Travis says:  

‘In this work I mirror historic images of the statue being vandalised, as well as the planting of the American flag at Iwo Jima to question who are the heroes? Is it those who construct narratives where colonial progress is good or those who tear down the false history and shine a light on the oppression of a people.’