NPG

Lowitja O'donoghue
By Robert Hannaford
Lowitja O’donoghue is of Aboriginal decent and was born the 1st of August 1932. She was named Australian of the year in 1984 for her work to improve the welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people.
The artist has captured Lowitja’s personality very clearly in this portrait by his use of colour and her face expression. The colours she is wearing is obviously red, black and yellow, this shows that she is clearly of aboriginal decent as they are the three colours of the aboriginal flag. Her face expression says a lot about what she has been through. She looks very weary and tired, as she fought for Aboriginal rights for most of her life. But she also has a sense of accomplishment about her, and this is true as she finally was able to get support for the welfare of Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders.


Meryl Tankard
By Ingvar Kenne

I couldn’t find an online image for this particular artwork, but it is a photograph of a dancer named Meryl Tankard. Meryl Tankard began her dance career in 1975 at the Australian Ballet School, and has since gone on to choreograph her own work.
The photo depicts Meryl sitting in a wooden folding chair with her feet pointed and her arms crossed in her lap. Although she is not being photographed while dancing, the way she is sitting with such grace and elegance make it obvious that she is in fact a dancer.