Whaler's daughter, 1990 Digital

Item — Box: LTFBOX/MYERS Box 1

Identifier(s): H2019.53/8

Whaler's daughter

Scope and contents

Shows a large central female nude figure surrounded by a raven, dog and whale, with small figures of men in the top right rowing, hunting and harpooning the great whale in the top right corner.

The drawing is described by Robert K. Wallace in 'Vali Myers: Between the dusk and dawn', p. 38: "in this drawing too, the face and breasts of a frontal female figure are framed overhead by a bleeding white whale surging toward the small black men who have initiated the attack. "Rather than anger," however, "the woman in this drawing expresses her sense of unity with nature. As if they had finished suckling, a raven and dog rest at ease upon the breasts of the whaler's daughter while she gazes peacefully at the viewer, validating her vision."

Dates

1990

Creator

Myers, Vali, 1930-2003 (Artist, Person)

Conditions governing use

Copyright status

This work is in copyright

Extent

1 drawing : pen, pencil and black ink ; 22.5 x 33 cm

Additional description

General note

Signed and dated in image lower right: Vali Myers 1990.

Reproduced in 'Vali Myers: Between the dusk and dawn', Bundoora, La Trobe University, 2013', p. 99.

One of 14 framed works on paper from exhibitions, framed by Outre Gallery, deframed. Described by Gianni Menichetti in 'Notes about Vali's drawings in this book' (YMS 16336, Box 6/3): Except for the background scenes of the Valley and the animals, the most recurring theme in Vali's drawings is the 'whale hunt', really the 'Moby Dick scene'. Amongst her favourite books 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville was the one she read the most or had read to her while drawing, especially the last chapters. She always identified with the harpooned whale: the blows dealt by life in the shape of men she saw like harpoons in her own body and she carried them as scars. Her favourite part of Melville's story of course was the third and last day of 'The Chase' in which the boat and all the men (except for Ishmael who survives to tell the tale) sink to their doom. The expression on the whaler's daughter's face is very enigmatic: she has her back turned to the ruthless and cruel fight of man against Nature of which she is a part. If the whaler is her father, the whale is her mother or she herself. A face full of blissful indifference mixed maybe with fatalism and a sense of natural vengeance. On her breasts, the fox on the side of the heart and on the other the raven of nigredo brooding.