Jeffrey Samuels, Ngemba painter, illustrator, designer, mixed media artist and printmaker, was born in Bourke in northwest New South Wales in 1956 and spent his early childhood years on sheep properties at Carinda. Samuels was creative from an early age, and used to make copies of comic book illustrations, landscape images and pictures from newspapers, and create Christmas cards for the family.

In 1978, Samuels completed a Diploma in Fine Art and the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education (now the National Art School) in Sydney. While studying, he found he was not so inspired by European art genres and theories, but more by “traditional and contemporary Aboriginal dancing, language, music, theatre, literature and visual artist along with Aboriginal and Australian social political issues” (2005 biography, Boomalli archive). The Arrernte watercolourist Albert Namatjira was also an inspirational reference point for the artist.

In 1983, Samuels received an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Arts Board fellowship, which allowed him to undertake a residency with Lyndsey Roughsey, a Lardil elder from Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. In that year he was able to convert his Diploma of Fine Art to a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) at the then City Art Institute (now the site of the College of Fine Arts), Sydney. The following year Samuels participated in “Koori Art ’84” at Artspace, Sydney, one of the seminal exhibitions that marked the emergence of the urban Aboriginal artists’ movement in Australia, and in 1987 he cofounded the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative, which fostered the careers of many of these artists. He has participated in a number of Boomalli exhibitions over the years including “Boomalli Breaking Boundaries” (1989), “Blackroots: Koori Indigenous Gay and Lesbian Art” (1997), “A Little Bit’a Paint” – a two-person show with Tracey Bostock (1997), and the solo exhibition “Stylin-Up” (2000), and has also contributed to the administration of the cooperative with stints as chairman and secretary.

In his art practice Samuels has always sought to affirm his “Aboriginal identity and cultural heritage and its artistic expressions” and his dedication to community well-being is further reflected in his practice as an arts professional, teacher and advocate (Boomalli archive). Over the years he has donated paintings to charities and fundraising events in support of a range of causes, has facilitated mural projects at schools, TAFE’s, Universities and within Australian gaols, and has taught art and conducted workshops in schools, tertiary institutions, gaols, museums and art centres. He has been commissioned to create poster designs for a number of Indigenous community events, logos for Indigenous organisations, and in 2000 he was commissioned to recreate a painting for the Nature Segment of the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games.

Samuels’ exhibitions have included “The Blake Prize for Religious Art”, Commonwealth Bank, Sydney (1983-4), :Aratjara: Art of the First Australians”, which toured to European art museums in 1993 and 1994, “Urban Focus” at the National Gallery of Australia (1999), and “Bangu Yilbara: Works from the MCA Collection”, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006). He is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Flinders University, the Australian Museum and the National Museum of Australia.

Writers:

Poll, Matt

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

2011