Race, Gender and Aesthetics: Representations of Indigeneity in the Artwork of Brownie Downing

This article examines the ceramic artwork produced in the 1940s and 1950s by Viola Edith Downing, also known as Brownie Downing. I focus specifically on representations of Australian Aboriginal children, and also consider how Native American and Native Hawaiian children are portrayed on ceramic plates. These plates were purchased for display in the home often as tourist souvenirs that marked the holiday experience. I argue that representations of Indigenous children function discursively within a gendered white colonising possessive aesthetic whereby childhood innocence and happiness operate to erase colonisation and indigenous sovereignties.