Sonya Maher

This painting was painted by Tasmanian Aboriginal artist Sonya Maher in Risdon Prison, Hobart, Tasmania. She paints under the Yala Edmonds Art Trust program, an initiative of Euan Hills of Art Mob and Gail Edmonds of Sydney to provide rehabilitation for Aboriginal artists while in prison. She typically paints seascapes of Cape Barren Island- an island in the Furneaux Group to the north east of Tasmania. Cape Barren Island is the home place to many Aboriginal Tasmanians as their forebears were relocated there in the 1830’s – one of the world’s earliest dispossessions.