Anna Louise Richardson

Based on Whadjuk Nyungar Country, Anna Louise Richardson investigates rural Australian identity and associated mythologies. Working primarily in charcoal and graphite, her practice reveals ideas of intergenerational exchange, parenthood and identity based on her experiences of living and working on a multi-generation beef cattle farm. The driving themes of her practice are the complex relationships between humans and the natural world.

We should be more afraid of the sun than the moon is autobiographical, revealing multigenerational connections with the land. This installation emerges from broader investigations into familiar and domestic objects and responds to Richardson’s own evolving narrative of motherhood in a rural setting. The works include household hazards of knives, power boards, poison, cars and spiders highlighting the proximity of danger present in everyday life, particularly those that underline parental worry. By drawing objects that provoke imaginings of calamities on a domestic scale, Richardson speaks directly to our common anxieties around danger, death, and our innate need to protect the ones we love.