Convict shadows
Heather Dorrough

1991
ink and watercolour on paper
130.8 x 110.5 cm

Description
Ink and watercolour drawing on paper of a male convict silhouette and shadow. Multiple texts are written across the convict’s body including: ‘Ticket of leave/ No. 42/2013/ 6th Sept 1842/ Prisoner’s No 36/1511/ Name Charles Phillips/ Ship Moffatt/ Master B …/ Year 1836 …’. The broad arrow, or Pheon, is featured and was used to identify British government property, including convict clothing. Inscribed in ink, lower right: ‘“Convict Shadows” Dorrough 1991’. Framed in matt with pale pink frame.

Significance statement  
The Hyde Park Barracks was at the heart of Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s grand vision for the penal colony of Sydney. Constructed between 1817 and 1819 to a design by colonial architect Francis Greenway, the Barracks provided accommodation for male convicts in government employmenT In 1990 ownership passed to the Historic Houses Trust (HHT) who remade the building as a museum to its own history, in particular the convict phase.

In 1991 curator Peter Emmett commissioned artist Heather Dorrough to create an interpretative series of life-size convict silhouettes for the third floor of the Barracks. The Convict shadows series aimed to ‘reinstate the human presence of convict lives’. The silhouettes suggest the mood and gesture of convicts housed at the Barracks. This preliminary drawing for the series illuminates Dorrough’s production processes. Dorrough used official records to determine convict size and shape, crime and punishment. The convict profiles are accompanied by a sound program based on text by Paul Carter:

‘Drawn from official records, a crowd of voices, episodes, sounds and silence jostle with each other for attention and identity. [Together] they evoke the patterns and presence of lost human experience.’

History
The artist donated the work to the HHT in 1991.

Maker biography
Heather Dorrough was born in London in 1933 where she attended Eastbourne College of Art and the Royal College of Art before working as an interior designer in London, New York and Sydney. Following marriage and the birth of her first child, she began using textiles and became involved in the Crafts Council of NSW. Dorrough has held many solo exhibitions and completed textile commissions for NSW Parliament House, the Australian Embassy in Saudi Arabia, IBM Sydney and Bond University, Queensland. These commissions led her to become involved in installations and three-dimensional space. In the 1980s Dorrough completed her MA (Visual Arts) at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW, concentrating on drawing and sculpture. The commission Convict shadows relates to this period. Since moving to Dangar Island, Dorrough has worked on a smaller scale with painting, printmaking and particularly etching.

Museum number
HHT2004/3

Image credit
Jenni Carter

Bibliography  
Cochrane, Grace, The crafts movement in Australia: a history, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, 1992
Dorrough, Heather, Hearth & home: rethinking her story: one day symposium held at Elizabeth Bay House, 18 March 1989 [sound recording], Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Sydney, 1989
Emmett, Peter & Collins, Lynn, Hyde Park Barracks [guidebook], Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Glebe, 1994
Petersen, John, Hyde Park Barracks Museum: guidebook, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Glebe, 2003