Warwick Thornton: Stranded

Overview

In 2009 Warwick Thornton won the Camera D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with his film Samson & Delilah. In 2010 he was the subject of Craig Ruddy's People's Choice Award-winning entry into the Archibald Prize, the fascinatingly backlit The Prince of Darkness - Warwick Thornton. With all these successes, all the gold and the irradiation, he is getting a certain glow. So how does he step up for 2011? Thornton's six-year-old self has the answer.

"When I grow up I want to be just like Jesus," young Warwick is recalled by his older self to have said, and Stranded is the grown up take on that. His first venture at creating art for a gallery space, it sees the artist cast as a Christ figure affixed to a glowing lightbox cross.

A Kaytej man whose lands lie to the north of Alice Springs, the Australian desert has a strong presence in Thornton's work and it is here that he situates this version of Golgotha. Crucifixes with skulls and bones near a watering hole, Stranded shows images of the figure from different angles and at different times of day. There are still-prints and a 3D film that adds sound and depth to the immensity of the plight depicted and the space in which it takes place.  It's heavy symbolism, sure, but it manages to be ambiguous and troubling and beautiful.