A selection of works by Gordon Syron
| ‘Judgement By His Peers’
1978 GORDON SYRON Currently hanging in the office of Linda Burney, Minister for Indigenous Australians |
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| ‘Portrait David Gulpilil’
1988 GORDON SYRON 1988 Entry Archibald Prize (was returned to a devastated Syron, 40 paintings were hung but even though it was the Bicentennary Celebratory Year of 1988, it was not selected). Currently hanging in the office of Senator the Hon Malarndirri McCarthy, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians
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| Mum Shirl, Shirley Smith A Portrait
1998 GORDON SYRON 1998 Archibald Entry |
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| ‘Black Bastards Are Coming’
2013 GORDON SYRON Series: Invasion Day ANMM Collection 00054536, reproduced courtesy of Gordon Syron and licenced for use by the museum.This work re-imagines European contact from an Indigenous perspective. |
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| ‘Phillip First White man Through the Heads Invasion Day’ (c) Gordon Syron
Series: Invasion Day |
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| ‘Terror Nullius’ (part II) by Gordon Syron, oil on canvas, 1997. ANMM Collection 00031858. | 
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| ‘Invasion I’
Gordon Syron Series: Invasion Day I want to show the negative feelings of the Aboriginal people, The truth is the way it was. The white master race came and took our land and did not even have the courtesy to ask us or buy it. They said we weren’t even human beings. They claimed our land as “Terra Nullias” British law is all right for the British, but Aboriginal law, customs, language, dance, mimi spirits have been around a lot longer than “British law”. |
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| ‘Because prison is such a lonely place’
(c) Gordon Syron First shown at the Tony Mundine Gym. Second time at the second exhibition at the Tony Mundine Gym. |
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| ‘The Dreaming Man’ 2002 GORDON SYRON Oil on canvas The first of a series on how a traditional Aboriginal comes ‘to Redfern’, to the ‘big smoke.’ He comes from the ‘bush’, to get a job, to see relatives and friends, to see Sydney and does he get a shock, at all them things. The living conditions are better at home. He is caught in the crossroads of life, stranded, no money to get back home, no hope even for a job and what is left? If he stays in Redfern then the chance of going to jail is great. He can then have drugs and alcohol under police supervision. The Dreaming Man is lost in time, the poor bastard. Additional comments by Gordon: “There are Dreaming Aboriginal Women too. Not just men. Kids, the whole lot too. There are a lot of Aboriginal people who dream. The truth is they used to own all this land. You gotta have a dream or you don’t go nowhere. “The Dreaming Man” was created from many different perspectives. There is a sadness about this first one. Southern Cross shows it is Australia. The Waratah shows it is New South Wales. I used to see the Waratah on my brother Kevin’s boxing shorts. He held the NSW featherweight title.” |
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| “Ant Dreaming”
2003 (c) Gordon Syron, Oil on canvas, money ant dreaming. This painting depicts how the richness and sweetness of the land was taken by invasion. It was replaced by white man’s excessive greed and monetary manipulation of this country. Here the Redcoat is trapped and it is my fantasy that the Honey Ant takes him to his nest so they can feast on the Redcoat. |
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| ‘The Native and The Rose’ 11 April 1998 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘The Black Bastards are Coming’ 2001 GORDON SYRON Series: Invasion Day |
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| ‘Bury the Living’ 1981 GORDON SYRONPainted while in prison.“This painting is unsigned because prison is such a lonely place. This painting is my prison window that I looked at for 10 years and I saw history through these bars that the redcoats brought to us; disease, rum, religion and death and destruction for my culture. |
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| ‘Gum Trees’ 2007 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘Invasion Day – Redcoats Coming through the Heads’ 2007 GORDON SYRON Series: Invasion Day “The Land of the Southern Cross” |
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| ‘Usurpers’ Series: Invasion Day 2007 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘The Narcissistic Redcoat’ 2001 GORDON SYRON ‘Narcissistic’ – favourite word of Gordon’s. |
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| ‘Featherfoot’ 2001 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘Where the Wildflowers Once Grew’
Series: wildflowers |
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| ‘The Study of Emu’ 2000 GORDON SYRON Series: Featherfoot Part of wall at Darlinghurst Gallery |
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| ‘The Black Bastards are coming’ 1993 GORDON SYRONSeries: Invasion Day Hung in exhibition at Neptune Gallery, 420 Bondi Road, Bondi Junction September 2008 |
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| ‘Untitled’ 1998 GORDON SYRON Elaine’s comments: Painted to be no. 2 of the painting “Wally’s Letter” (Wally Caruana) Gordon Syron 2004 |
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| ‘Cleverfoot – Running with the Emus’ GORDON SYRON ‘Changed from emu to man and from man to emu’ |
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| ‘The Waratah Forrest’ 2006 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘The Last Bottle’ 2003 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘Untitled’ 1999 GORDON SYRON Landscape, two Aboriginal people with spears and Black Boy and beautiful delicate gum tree. |
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| ‘Two white cockatoos’ Series: Do you believe in fairies? 2006 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘About Alice Springs’ 1999 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘Black Beach’ 2002 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘The Meeting Place. Spirits of the Past and Present – Parliament House ‘ 2005 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘An Aboriginal Perspective from the Lillipilli Tree’
Huge oil painting by Gordon Syron, was bought by the National Museum of Australia along with nine others in 2009. |
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| Gordon Syron
Series: Aboriginal Fairies Gordon prefered to use the word ‘Aboriginal’ to Indigenous as these fairies are specific to Aboriginal culture and not Torres Strait Islander culture. |
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| ‘Prime Minister’ John Howard 2000 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘Waratah Fairies’ Do you believe in fairies 2007 GORDON SYRON |
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| ‘Living Conditions’ painted while in gaol
1981 GORDON SYRON It is a very large painting which Syron donated to Murawina Childcare Centre, on Eveleigh St Redfern, (now closed down), as a group of Elders, Mrs Bostock, Mrs Merritt, & Mrs Ingram organised and held his firstsolo Exhibition in 1981. |
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| ‘No Trees & Here Comes The Redcoat’
GORDON SYRON Painting shown on display in the office of Linda Burney. No Trees & Here Comes The Redcoat is a cry for the environment. Australia’s fragile ecosystem is a delicate balance and the clearing of the land of it’s emu population greatly affected Aboriginal people. (Syron remembers his Grandmother telling him she remembers emu birds everywhere when she grew up at Forester-Tuncurry.)
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| “The Poisoning of the Waterholes of Australia #4”
GORDON SYRON Aboriginal people and a kangaroo stand nearby as the Redcoat pours poison (arsenic) into their precious waterhole or billabong.
This painting depicts the final solution to do away with the Aborigine so the squatters could take over the land easily. A sign was probably put up to warn other white men but as Aboriginal people as well as wildlife could not read this was an effective plan to exterminate the Aboriginal population. |
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| ‘Study of Emu’
2001 GORDON SYRON
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| ‘The Aboriginal Ballerina’
GORDON SYRON ‘The Aboriginal Ballerina is one of a series. It is a special painting to me because the first one I ever did … well I burned it. I burned it to make a protest. A short film has been made about it by famous journalist and activist, Mungo McCallum and his wife, Jenny who filmed in front of my Museum/Art Gallery called Black Fella’s Dreaming. This protest happened at my museum in Bangalow in 2005, and is followed by an interview & is on youtube now, with Mungo McCallum. When you say the words The Aboriginal Ballerina, you know that they don’t sound right because how many Aboriginal ballerinas do you know? I say self-determination is taking place when we do see Aboriginal ballerinas and lots of them. Some say this painting is a satirical painting, it is true I often turn things around, but it is not – it is just a simple statement that in Sydney how many scholarships are given to study dance? Our dance groups are so professional but why not give them more support emotionally and financially. Our professional organisations are always begging for more money, why? If they really want to close the gap then they should be throwing money to the organisations that are working and many grass-root organisations have trouble to make a go because of lack of finances. The failure of our society to produce wonderful Aboriginal ballerinas is society’s problem and a lack of caring about the very Indigenous culture they society took over. I put the Sydney Opera House in the background in order to show the landmark of Sydney. How many young Aboriginal girls ever dreamed about one day dancing at the Sydney Opera House? Are dreams important to young Aboriginal girls? I hope the series of this painting does inspire young Aboriginal girls to study dance!’ |
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| ‘Invasion Day III’
1999 GORDON SYRON In the collection of Museums of History This painting is a powerful reenactment of the landing and the offering of rum, etc. It is a passionate view from an Aboriginal perspective. Gordon has painted more than 350 paintings of Invasion Day or Comin’ Through The Heads |
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| Untitled from the “Throwaway History” SeriesGORDON SYRONThis artwork is a beautiful, delicate, huge painting and Syron worked on it for months adding more. It is dotted with waratahs and drooping flannel flowers from his land of birth. In many ways it is a sad painting, it is a catalogue of all the important things in the world to him and pays respects to his ancestors. This painting has not been exhibited. |
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| untitled
2012-2013 SYRON Syron worked on this painting for two years – it is a huge, angry painting pointing at a failed colonisation of Australia.
The floating bloated bodies refer to the smallpox deaths which spread from the Sydney community further into bush and cleared the land for the squatters to move in. The painting is dotted with Syron’s love of flannel flowers and waratahs, which are rarely seen in the wild but came from his family’s land.
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All the artworks featured in www.gordonsyron.com/art are copyright of the Artist Gordon Syron. Please ask permission before use.