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In 1978 Gordon
Syron painted, "Judgement by His Peers," in Long Bay prison. This theme
of a White fella defendant being judged by those who are not his peers,
was a visceral response to the injustice Syron felt at his conviction
at the hands of a jury, not of his peers. It was first shown on
Eveleigh Street, "The Block," Redfern at Murawina in an exhibition
organised by Mrs. Ingram, Mrs. Merritt and Mrs. Bostock.
Since it's
painting, "Judgement by His Peers," has been recognized by the legal
and political fraternity as a painting that convincingly communicates
injustice. It is referred to by Mr. Markham, Member of the State
Parliament of NSW and currently serving on the National Reconciliation
Committee, during the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in
Custody whose reference is sited in the, Private Member s
Statements, Australia: Assembly, 24 September 1996 on p. 26. As
he states in Parliament, "...the paintings by Gordon Syron, who found
himself in gaol in 1970 (1972 - ed), took up art and became an expert.
I implore all members to visit the exhibition. It will give them some
understanding of black deaths in custody and why Aboriginal people will
rally on Saturday to ensure that parlimentarians and the community are
aware of what is happening."
"Judgement by
His Peers" was painted during a Life Sentence in prison..." The crime
was motivated by the loss of Gordon's family's land. "It has been said
that this case was one of the earliest Land Rights cases. Yet in 1972
there were minimal liberties for Aboriginal Australians and during the
trial Syron was told he was not "Black enough" for a Land Rights case,
although he was Black enough to be prejudiced against by the legal
system by being denied a jury of his peers to pass Judgement on him.
Syron felt that he would not have been sentenced at all had he been
judged by an Aboriginal jury knowing that in British law each man is
judged "by his peers."
This experience
of injustice inspired Syron's first major work of art, "Judgement by
His Peers," which depicts in raw... style a courtroom in which everyone
but the defendant is black." Gordon Syron: Artist's Statement, 1996.
Syron's painting
became a rallying cry for injustices committed against people in
prison, killed whilst incarcerated and incarcerated more frequently
then their white, fellow subjects of Australia, often for minor
offences. Indeed the painting's publicity was concurrent with the rise
against Black Deaths in Custody. As Phillip Morrissey eloquently
explains the painting's significance to this profound cause in the
following essay,
Gordon Syron is one of Australia s most underrated Aboriginal artists.
Years before the
scandal of black deaths in custody became worthy of a national enquiry,
Gordon painted, Judgement by His Peers. It was [one
of Syron ed.] his first painting and was done while he was
serving time [a life sentence Syron ed.] in Sydney s Long
Bay Gaol.
By simply making
white man the accused, confronting an all black judicial system,
Judgement by His Peers, reveals an impartial legal system to be a
massively unfair exercise in power. This is the essence of racism and
colonisation and illustrates its legitimisation within objective forms,
processes and theories.
For many
Aboriginals the enquiry into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody has come too
late. And notwithstanding the poitical gains Aboriginal Australian have
made, a dogged rearguard action is fought by recists at all levels of
Australian society. This includes, where the opportunity exists,
continual major and minor abuses of power. Unfortunately every evidence
exists to say that the Muirhead Enquiry has not given Aboriginals
reason to bleive that their safety in State custody is assured."
At the time of
this essay Syron had produced a poster of the painting and was selling
them to raise funds. Part of the proceeds from this poster went to the
Committee to Defend Black Rights.
Morrissey, Phillip, Judgement By His Peers, Committee to Defend Black Rights, Adelaide University, 1988.
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