
The Royal Tour
- Publisher
- Perimeter Editions
- Year
- 2020
- ISBN
- 978-0-6486801-8-5
- Specifications
- Saddle stitched softcover
32 x 24 cm
48 pages
Made while in lockdown on the APY Lands in remote Central Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, Namatjira's debut artist book is as intimate as it is interventionist. Painting directly onto the pages of commemorative royal photo-books found at op-shops in Alice Springs, Namatjira – whose great-grandfather Albert Namatjira won the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal in 1953 – places himself front-and-centre amidst the pageantry of historical royal occasions. Wranglings with race, politics and empire coalesce with humour, humility and personal history; as Namatjira has said, he uses a mischievous self-portrait and cheeky humour as a way of putting everyone on the same level.