Sarah Scott

Sarah Scott is a lecturer in art history and theory. Her forthcoming publication Crosscurrents in Australian First Nations and non-Indigenous Art will be published by Routledge on 11 August 2023.

This edited volume includes her solo authored chapter 'Aesthetically Similar but Politically Far Apart: The Art and Designs of Bill Onus and Byram Mansell during the Assimilationist Era.' This contrasts the life of Yorta Yorta activist and designer Bill Onus (in consultation with his grandson Tiriki Onus) with the settler designer Byram Mansell pointing out that Onus's Aboriginal Enterprizes was an act of cultural resistance and revival whilst Mansell's appropraitions of Aboriginal art tended to support an assimilationist agenda prevelant during the 1950s and 1960s. . The book also contains a co-authored introduction concerning Cross-Currents. Emiritus Professor Terry Smith has endorsed the book commenting: ‘Truth-telling and reconciliation between First Nations and those who have since arrived has become the priority for all Australians. . .Non-Indigenous artists, curators and critics have responded in a variety of ways. The complexities of these exchanges are explored in unprecedented depth and detail in this book.'

She is currently working on a solo authored book examining both the representation of Australian First Nations people and appropriation of their art within Australian Settler modernist art which will include discussion of Russell Drysdale, Violet Teague, James Cant, Byram Mansell and others.