When Joey Gala was growing up with his friend, Michael Cook, in Hervey Bay in the early ’70s, he had no idea that he would become the central character in Michael’s art photography, which has been featured in major exhibitions and museums all over the world.
Joey, from the Butchulla people, also had no idea that he would play an important part in challenging the perceptions of Australia’s conflicted history.
It’s been a remarkable ride for Michael, who left school in Year 10 but learnt the most valuable lessons in life from his adoptive mother, as well as his Aboriginal friend, Joey.
The son of a white mother and an Aboriginal father, Michael has a foot placed in each culture, providing him with the ability to present artwork that bridges European and Indigenous worlds. His work is both thought-provoking and mesmerising, persuading the viewer to reflect on every tiny detail.
“My work conveys the same harsh message about colonial exploitation but in soft and beautiful layers,” says Michael. “My approach is to have empathy and not judge others.”
To understand Michael’s desire to question both his and society’s beliefs, it’s necessary to return to 1968, when he was born.
“My mum dated my father, an Aboriginal man from the Bidjara people, when she was about 16 and fell pregnant. She never told him or any member of her family and back then, it was unusual for a single teenage mother to keep her child.”
Michael was born at the Salvation Army Hospital in Windsor and was taken straight to the nursery before his mum could see or hold him. At four weeks old, he was adopted by a non-Indigenous family living in Hervey Bay.
“My adoptive mother was told that I was part-Aboriginal, and she was excited,” says Michael. “She was way ahead of her time as society was so discriminatory then. She was always fighting for Aboriginal rights and was on the Fraser Island Defence Organisation (FIDO), helping John Sinclair to get all the sandmining and logging stopped. She was very strong-willed when it came to human rights and protecting the environment, and this has influenced my work.
“Being the only Aboriginal person in my family and growing up in a white community, my mother always gave me a very good understanding of my identity,” he adds.
“Dad was a farmer and very chilled out, but Mum – who was a Hervey Bay councillor for 11 years – was fiery.”
Michael’s love affair with capturing images began at age 14 when his brother, who worked in a photographic lab in Caloundra, bought him a camera. Three years later, Michael got a job at the same lab, and he met his partner, Monika Selig, who was working at her family’s jewellery store next door. Apart from a short stint overseas, they have been on the Sunshine Coast ever since.
Michael’s career as an artist only started in 2009, after working for nearly 25 years in commercial photography. “In 2008, I did a fashion shoot in Hervey Bay and put it together as a storyline. This was the start of me using make-up artists, hairstylists, models and fashion stylists to create a story. It was my moment of teaching myself how to create a story with a series of images and how powerful it can be.”
The images were used in a New York magazine, which was published in 26 countries. Michael soon found himself in New York doing fashion shoots.
“The fashion industry turned me off pretty quickly because I realised how cut-throat it is. It robbed me of my creativity and creative space. I like to have my own ideas and for it to come from personal experience.
“Then I had the idea to do the prime ministers. (Michael’s first exhibition). I chose six prime ministers, then went to Cherbourg and Brisbane and found some Aboriginal people to photograph. We laid their faces over those of the prime ministers and played around with the images.”
Michael named his first series Through My Eyes, a nod to his upbringing. “What my mother taught me and what you see throughout my work is equal rights for Aboriginal people. What if people could see through Aboriginal eyes?”
After door-knocking at Sydney galleries, Michael tried the Andrew Baker Gallery in Brisbane. “He wasn’t there, but I got a call a week later asking me to come down. He told me to quit all the commercial work I was doing and concentrate only on art.
“Three weeks later he invited me back to the gallery to meet some curators from the National Gallery of Australia and they bought the whole set of 27 works. Later that year, I produced Undiscovered, a black and white series showing my friend Joey standing on the beach, and Broken Dreams. The National Gallery bought both sets.
“Over the years, I continued to produce more series, just me asking more questions about my identity, Aboriginal rights and stories Mum told me growing up.”
Happily, Michael reunited with his birth mother when he was aged 30 and she now lives around the corner from him in Bokarina Beach. He has never met his birth father, despite his mother reaching out.
Michael’s work has been shown all over the world, including in London, Venice, Quebec, Singapore, Monaco, Paris, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, San Diego, Cape Town and Utrecht. He has also won many awards.
There are recurring themes in his work, including loss of community, the impact of dislocation and inequality, the disconnection between a mother and her child, connection to the land, discrimination and challenging ingrained beliefs. As Michael has explored these themes over the years, he admits that his latest work has become more personal.
“The most powerful artwork is based on lived experience and the things I feel passionate about. It needs to be my story. As a 56-year-old, I am questioning life, as we all do when we get to mid-life. My latest series, Individuation, is based around societal conditioning, consumerism, ego, not being authentic and masking yourself in society.
“I looked at how indigenous cultures lived prior to colonisation and how everything we search for today is what they had – spirituality, community, culture and the land.
“We go to work, rush through the day, come home, rush to get dinner done, rush to go to bed, rush to get up in the morning. We also rush through the weekend and rush to retirement without ever really questioning the type of life we want to live.
Michael worked on Individuation, a term coined by Carl Jung, for around 18 months, although it represents “about 10 years of ideas”.
As for the future, Michael hopes to promote his work to a wider audience internationally – not to make money and not for his ego, but in the hope that it will provoke thought, prompt people to ask questions and be more authentic to themselves.