Troy-Anthony Baylis: Yes, I am musical
Troy-Anthony Baylis is a Sydney-born, Brisbane-bred, Adelaide-based artist. He is a descendant of the Jawoyn people from the Northern Territory and is also of Irish ancestry – a descendant from those colonised across two continents. Baylis’ artistic practice has included performance, video, painting, costumes, knitting, assemblage, photography, embroidery, artist multiples, installation and a parade float. Despite these many and varied artistic and cultural interests, the two themes of sexuality and Indigeneity recur. Here, Baylis is in conversation with Emma Fey, the CEO of Guildhouse.
Image credit: Troy-Anthony Baylis, Anita Bryant Monument 3, 2021, die-cut stickers on paper record-sleeve, 34.5 x 34.5 cm. Courtesy the artist
With frequent references to queer culture, music and monuments, your work is a layered exploration of identity, culture and Country. Do you consider your work to be an act of activism?
I certainly don’t think others would see me as an activist and I think that is partly because I have a tendency not to respond to current issues through my work. I’m into making works that have longevity and I am cautious of making works for a moment or for a news cycle. And yet, I am an activist – I just feel some caution about the term.
I think about your work in reconciliation and your interest in exploring polarities, holding multiple truths at the same time. Tell me about the Nomenclature series, one of the bodies of work to come out of your time in Berlin during your Guildhouse Fellowship in 2019?
My Nomenclature works are a series of Australian landscapes made from spliced and woven acrylic-on-canvas paintings and embellished with sewn synthetic yarn. Each episode is a monument in honour of the naming of Country, where multiple official identifications coexist to become reconciled within a singular image. I was interested in the synthetic act of naming, and the history of the South Australian Nomenclature Act 1917, which saw German-sounding place names in Australia changed due to anti-German sentiment. The warp and weft suspend these histories of place and meanings of place.
I feel like wherever I am, I am aware that there have been events, happenings, people and lives prior. I suppose I feel that strongly here in Australia for very obvious reasons, but I also feel it in Germany too. In Berlin there are physical markers to trigger these senses, more present than ...Subscribe to read this article in full
