Ella - Then and Now by Julie Dowling

Acclaimed artist Julie Dowling painted these ‘then’ and ‘now’ paintings to depict an Aboriginal woman called Ella. Ella had worked with Dowling’s grandmother in the Gascoyne bush in the 1950s and impressed Dowling’s mother with her philosophical view of life. At age 5, Ella had her first contact with a white man, having followed horse prints to his camp and recalling that he smelt like a dead kangaroo. The ‘now’ painting depicts Ella later in life, when she ended up in an old person’s home in Perth during the 1970s. “I wanted to show the contrast between the city and country of her youth,” Dowling said.