Maree Clarke

Since the late 1980s, Maree Clarke (b. 1961) has been instrumental to the revival of southeast Australian Aboriginal material cultural practices. An artist, curator, cultural facilitator and educator, Clarke is a Yorta Yorta, Wamba Wamba, Mutti Mutti and Boonwurrung woman. She grew up in Mildura in northwest Victoria, along the Murray River, but today lives in Yarraville, Melbourne, where her backyard studio is dedicated to producing and passing on cultural knowledge.

Clarke was first prompted to make jewellery in 1987 when asked by the Mildura Aboriginal Corporation to establish an outlet for local and national Aboriginal art.[1] Backgrounded by the Australian bicentenary, when a burgeoning national interest in Aboriginal crafts and cultural practices took hold, Clarke produced necklaces and earrings from seeds and echidna quills; “…basically, I haven’t stopped making jewellery since.”[2] Clarke’s research into south-eastern Aboriginal material culture has since been exhaustive. Her close examination of anthropological texts and ethnographic collections, here in Australia and internationally, has played a significant role in reprising the histories and designs of cultural artefacts of the southeast, including ceremonial body adornments like necklaces and headbands, possum-skin cloaks, shields and kopi – gypsum head caps traditionally worn by women in mourning.

[1]“Fran Edmonds with Maree Clarke”, Indigenous Story, accessed 15 September, 2021

[2]Maree Clarke interviewed by Jane O’Sullivan, “Maree Clarke on connecting with culture and history,” Art Guide, 25 June, 2021

Clarke often invites family members into the process of producing her work, from sourcing materials to preparing and finishing. Kangaroo teeth necklace (2020), for example, involves gathering roadkill from trips on Country, removing the sinew and teeth, preparing the leather, mixing ochre and wattle resin, and binding the kangaroo teeth with sinew string – a time-intensive and laborious process.[1] Every stage of making is an occasion to share these traditional techniques; “…at its core, my practice is about building community and passing cultural knowledge to the next generation.”[2]

Clarke however, is also interested in the translation of traditional practices into contemporary mediums. For Black glass necklace with red and green feathers and seed pods (2021), Clarke worked with Canberra Glass Works to fabricate black glass river reeds and seed pods filled with ochre, gathered on Country, to produce a trio of large-scale necklaces. Based on a talisman given to people passing through Country as an emblem of safe passage and friendship, Clarke says ‘…the glass river reed necklaces are just as valid as the traditional ones.”[3] Between thirty to forty metres in length, each necklace speaks to the scale of loss due to colonisation – loss of land, language and cultural knowledge – but is equally a powerful assertion of presence. Clarke’s nearby photographic portraits of her nephews Jacob and Aaron galvanise this idea. As sitters, they enact her jewellery; they transform the sculptural objects into body adornment once more, revived with purpose and primacy for the twenty-first century.

[1]“Maree Clarke.” Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. The New National: New Australian Art, 26 March – 22 August, 2021.

[2]Maree Clarke, “Linear Artist: Maree Clarke”, Powerhouse Museum, 15 November, 2019,

[3]“Maree Clarke.” Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.