Convict women come to life on the tiles

They spent the voyage to Van Diemen’s Land making a quilt. Now they’re immortalised in a much harder medium.

Bern Emmerichs was inspired by the Rajah quilt. Picture: Kym Smith

The convict women who sailed on the Rajah to Van Diemen’s Land in 1841 produced a commemorative patchwork quilt using squares of fabric. Now a Melbourne artist has rendered the women’s story in a rather more hard-wearing medium — painted ceramic tile.

Bern Emmerichs says she became fascinated with the story of the famous Rajah quilt, made by some of the 180 women who were transported on the Rajah.

“Every woman on the ship was given scissors, a package of thread and material, and it was to keep them occupied and to learn a skill,” Emmerichs says.

When the Rajah landed in Hobart the quilt was presented to Jane Franklin, wife of lieutenant governor John Franklin. It was rediscovered in 1987 and now is held in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Emmerichs’s multi-panel ceramic installation, called Cross-stitched, has gone on display next door at the National Portrait Gallery.

An exhibition that opened late last week at the NPG, called So Fine: ­Contemporary Women Artists Make Australian History, features the work of 10 artists who have interpreted historical events from a female perspective.

Emmerichs says she started using tiles for her artworks because she liked having a home where she could “step on my paintings”. The painstaking process involves multiple firings in a kiln and an element of risk, because she never knows how the painted tile will come out.

About a decade ago, the early colonial period became a subject for her art. Her highly detailed work includes portraits of Lachlan and Elizabeth Macquarie, William Bligh, Bennelong and William Barak.

As well as producing tiles, Emmerichs has worked on illustrated books including a children’s picture book, M is for Mutiny: History by Alphabet.

Her installation at the NPG includes a version of the Rajah quilt and depictions of the female convicts. To individualise the figures, Emmerichs referred to physical descriptions of the women including marks such as tattoos and details of their crimes.

So Fine: ­Contemporary Women Artists Make Australian History is at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra until October 1.