Mia Boe is a painter from Brisbane, with Butchulla and Burmese ancestry. The inheritance and 'disinheritance' of both of these cultures focus her work. Mia's paintings respond, sometimes obliquely, to Empire’s deliberate, violent interferences with the cultural heritages of Burma and K’gari (Fraser Island).

These works are reflections on nostalgia. Nostalgia for places that exist and do not exist. I have placed myself within various landscapes with figures from the past. There’s a portrait of my maternal grandmother, Edna — who I never got to meet. There is Eliza Fraser, the woman whose name erased the Butchulla name for my ancestral homeland (K’gari). There is my ancestor Wonamutta (Jack Noble), who was a trooper in the Queensland Native Police, and one of the Black Trackers who helped catch Ned Kelly. There is Sidney Nolan, who painted Eliza Fraser on K’gari, and who also painted Ned Kelly. And the black figures are representations of various spirits. Spirits of family members that I have known and will never meet. These various figures have been my access points to the histories of K’gari. The works are explorations of what it means for me to have lost/stolen connections to a homeland. There is a romanticisation of the idea of a homeland — or homecoming, as well as the acknowledgement of futures lost.

Paintings by Mia Boe
Design adaptation by Raft Studio
Photos by Anne Moffat

Fire Plays Eyes to the Blind has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body and the City of Melbourne through Arts House.