Jannene Gauci created this Indigenous artwork for lockers to commemorate Davell’s 75th anniversary. The emerging artist recently shared some of the background to her creation and how she came to provide the unique design.
Jannene’s connection with Davell happened when she was recommended to Brenton Gray, the Managing Director of Davell Products. Jannene discussed with Brenton the design requirements for a bank of lockers that would be donated to a local school at Lucas Heights, in Dharawal country.
With her early commissioned pieces featured in a local preschool and a dentist’s practice, Jannene recently began producing Indigenous artwork. Jannene’s mother is an experienced Aboriginal artist, so it was in some ways familiar territory for her. Janene’s own artistic style features bright colours. She says, “I’m very modern in what I do, whereas my Mum’s work is very traditional.”
There were technical constraints to producing a design wrapped around the lockers. There were also cultural issues to navigate for Jannene, who is from Gundangara country in southeast NSW. For cultural reasons, she opts not to paint Aboriginal lore. “Our dreamtime story, as opposed to another mob’s dreamtime story, is completely different,” says Jannene. Even the story told by neighbouring Indigenous groups about the same river can be different.
The direction for the Davell Locker Australian design was to create an artwork made entirely of dots. Dot paintings that depict Australia’s landscape and spirituality became popular in the last century, evolving from traditional dot techniques used by Indigenous people. Jannene explains that there are ways to make dots represent all kinds of things. “The different sizes of the dots, for example, represents the growth that we can achieve throughout life at different stages.”
For the artwork, Jannene used coloured dots to show a landscape. “The colours symbolise the land, the animals, the waterways and the flora”. Her dot-work expresses imagery such as dragonflies evolving from a traditional flower. Directions of travel and meeting places were also conveyed through dot placement.
The design, ‘Connection to Country’, was converted into a wrap for the special lockers, and the lockers were installed at Lucas Heights Community School.
Jannene felt she had “nailed” the brief, but the endorsement of her artist mother – who is known for her high-quality standards and critical observations – meant a lot to her. Jannene says, “She keeps commenting on those lockers after I sent her the photos. She said, ‘I can’t believe how good it looks.’”
