Fiona Foley

Her research focused on the Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897.

A number of her artworks have referenced this act and its effect on the Badtjala people.

Her thesis was subsequently published by University of Queensland Press as Biting the Clouds, which won the 2021 Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance.

Community engagement is pertinent to Foley's art practice.

She contributed to the emergence of urban Australian Indigenous Art through her participation in the seminal Koori '84 group exhibition at Artspace.

Following this, she was involved in the foundation of several artist co-operatives and initiatives.

These include the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative and artist exchanges and collaborative workshops between Badtjala people and artists from Maningrida & Ramingining.

More recently Foley’s involvement in the arts community has extended to curatorial roles.

Her father was Barry Foley (1938-2017) who was born in Sydney, one of nine children in a Catholic family.

His father emigrated to Australia from Ireland before World War one.

Fiona Foley (born 1964) is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist from K'gari (Fraser Island), Queensland.

Foley is known for her activity as an academic, cultural and community leader and for co-founding the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative.

Her practice encompasses many media including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, textiles and installation, and her work addresses contemporary political issues facing Indigenous Australians.

It is held in the public collections of many Australian state, national, and university collections, including the Cruthers Collection of Women's Art as well as the British Museum in London.

Foley's work has toured internationally and featured in several major exhibitions, including Global Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum, and World of Dreamings: Traditional and modern art of Australia at Russia's Hermitage Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, and Artspace.

Fiona Foley was born in Maryborough in 1964 and raised in nearby Hervey Bay and (briefly) Mount Isa.

Foley attended high school in Sydney with her siblings, and then attained a Certificate of Arts from East Sydney Technical College in 1983.

Since 1985, Foley has had significant engagement with Indigenous communities in central Australia, most notably Maningrida and Ramingining in Arnhem Land.

She was one of the first Indigenous students to attend the Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1986.

The following year she completed a Diploma of Education at Sydney University.

Foley's mother, Shirley Foley, was born in Urangan and was a member of the Wondunna clan of the Badtjala people, the traditional owners of K'gari, sometimes formerly known as Thoorgine.

In 1988, Shirley Foley established the Thoorgine Educational and Culture Centre on the island.

She spent twenty years researching and recording Badjala language and culture, culminating in the publication of a Badtjala/English dictionary.

Her mother's cultural pride and high regard for education have influenced Foley throughout her career.

Foley and her mother visited Maningrida in 1992, facilitating a cultural exchange between locals and Badtjala people.

Before this, Foley lived and worked in Ramingining for several months.

These trips greatly informed her practice, provided further insights into Aboriginal culture, and inspired her to be a cultural leader.

In 1994 she co-curated Tyerabarrbowaryaou II - I shall never become a white man for the Havana Biennial alongside Djon Mundine.

This was the first international exhibition to be curated by Indigenous Australians.

Political issues are central to Foley’s practice.

Her works in public art and installation aim to examine and redress previously disregarded histories of colonisation in Australia.

In 1995, Foley permanently moved back to Hervey Bay to be with family and take part in Native Title negotiations regarding a portion of Fraser Island.

One such example is Edge of the Trees, a 1995 collaboration with Janet Laurence - the first major public artwork by both an Indigenous and a non-Indigenous Australian artist.

In 1995 it was awarded the Lloyd Rees Award for Urban Design.

The work utilises both Western and Indigenous iconographies to evidence historical conflict - both on its site (the Museum of Sydney, formerly Australia’s first Government House) and across Australia.

Pukumani or tutini (funerary) poles contrast Sydney’s urban landscape and memorialise the violence that shaped early interactions with settlers on the city’s shore.

Foley’s Land Deal (1995) and Lie of the Land (1997) serve as evidence and a reminder of John Batman’s now-invalidated treaty for 600,000 acres of Wurundjeri land (where Melbourne currently stands), and its basis on false premises.

Similarly, Witnessing to Silence (2004) remembers all known massacres of Indigenous people within Queensland, listing 94 such sites.

As of 2014, this claim has been successful.

In 2017 Foley completed a Doctorate of Philosophy.