Jennifer Herd is a contemporary artist based in Brisbane, Queensland, her celebrated practice well-known for the use of pin holes as a metaphor for bullet holes. Used in combination with camouflage and target motifs, Herd’s work is both delicate in its creation, yet powerful in its political charge. Her motivations are focussed on truth telling and aim to shine a light on the veiled history of frontier resistance particularly in the region of her Mother’s country in North Queensland. Further adaptations include designs of traditional shields to suggest a method of cultural defence and survival, combined with the target to take aim at historical and contemporary perceptions of these injustices.
‘I have used pinholes to highlight the bloody intersection of two cultures. They symbolise the many rainforest shields punctured with bullet holes during these frontier conflicts. As Christie Palmerston, an explorer at the time so chillingly wrote: “Their shields may answer very well for the purposes of their wars, but my rifle drilled through these as if they were sheets of paper.’
The overlaying elements of within Herd’s work, reminiscent of camouflage, suggests defence and disguise, redefining indigenous cultural identity as an ongoing mode of survival. It also remains a familiar symbol of modern warfare, used by Herd to draw attention to the documented and un-recorded conflicts, dispersals and dispossession waged on Aboriginal people by colonial expansion since 1788.
‘As we stand our ground, this piece asks broader society to lift their gaze, look through the camouflage and remove this target from the hearts and minds of Aboriginal people.’
In 2003, Herd won the Queensland College of Art Graduate Students prize, the Theiss Art Prize, for her Masters of Visual Arts and later became the convenor of the Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art program at the Queensland College of Art. Jennifer Herd is also a founding and current member of ProppaNOW Artists Collective. Herd’s work is held in numerous collections including University of Queensland Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern, Art Caloundra Regional Gallery; Museum of Brisbane, Griffith University Art Museum; QUT Art Museum and the Australian War Memorial Canberra.
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