Interview with Chris Wood

Western Australia’s vast landscape encompasses an abundance of rich  histories and communities. How has your experience in Western Australia shaped your artistic practice and worldview? 

I moved to Perth from Queensland when I was four and I’ve been here ever since. My great grandmother, Kaye Wilson, was born in the Kimberley and taken to Beagle Bay Mission when she was four under Stolen Generation policies. This state has seen a lot of injustice in its time, and still does, but there’s also a lot we do right here that I think we take for granted. 

In terms of my artistic practice, maybe I have a chip on my shoulder, in the same way I feel WA collectively has too when it comes to the rest of the country and the world. I want to help show how good the artists in WA are. 

What makes up your cultural and/or personal identity—does it come from a sense of belonging to place, ancestry, heritage, or something else entirely?  

Because cultural and familial bonds were lost, and my mixed heritage gave me an ambiguous ethnic appearance to some, I always felt growing up that I didn’t belong anywhere. Not knowing who or what I was supposed to feel like was numbing at the best and distressing at the worst of times. The first time I felt I belonged was amongst other comic makers in Perth. Now I’m grateful for the journey I’ve been on to reconnect with my Aboriginal culture and roots. 

In what ways do you hope your art contributes to preserving or evolving this cultural and/or personal identity?  

My practice is introspective and gives me the opportunity to keep learning about myself and developing parts of myself I want to focus on. The longer I go at this, the more comfortable I am saying I’m an artist, which hasn’t always been the case. In the future, I hope to explore my own personal perspective in stories. 

Could you speak to the artwork/s you have chosen to feature on Portside Review? Tell us how this work represents your art practice and philosophy. 

I took great care in portraying the characters in The Coffee Table, making them feel real and genuine. How I draw people and places and things is how I see the world around me. To me it's a place of diversity and bringing that authenticity to my work is very important to me.  

The colouring-in designs are all based on historical WA landmarks related to either the ocean, or our relationship with water. I’d never designed colouring-in pages before, and honestly didn’t think I’d seen many that were pleasant to look at, so the balance of making it fit for purpose while capturing the beauty of these places was a challenge, but one I think I succeeded at.

These cartoons for ReGen Strategic all involve the ocean, highlighting the damaging effects of climate change. I’ve spent many sleepless nights agonizing over how to portray water, and I’ve subsequently developed from the realism of past work to the more abstract presentations of the sea in recent work. 

Sometimes, our greatest artistic inspirations come from the people and communities closest to us rather than from “experts”. Who or what in your personal life inspires you the most?  

My strongest inspiration comes from my father, Wayne. It’s not lost on me that despite WA’s history of slavery and wage theft of First Nations people, one of the highest ranking union officials in Australia today is Aboriginal. He’s lived a hard life, but it’s made him stronger than everyone else and now he uses that to protect others and fight those who seek to hurt working Australians of any colour or heritage. Finding something I’m passionate about and dedicating my life to it is something I learnt from him.

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