Re-presenting encounters: The drawings of Jean Piron

ABSTRACT

This essay examines visual materials stemming from Bruni d’Entrecasteaux’s French expedition to the South Sea in 1791–1794 in search of the lost vessels of La Pérouse. They comprise the artist Piron’s surviving drawings of places, people, plants, animals, and objects seen during the voyage; and Copia’s engravings made from Piron’s drawings to illustrate the published narrative of the naturalist La Billardière. The drawings and engravings are not simple visual facsimiles of outward appearances, but nuanced products of the interplay of Enlightenment and republican ideals with Piron’s experiences of encountering Indigenous people. I then discuss a body of my artwork made in response to both visual and written representations, incorporating painting, drawing, and installation to re-present embedded information about interpersonal engagements during the expedition. Using a strategy of quotation, I meld historical imagery with neoclassical and Tongan ornamental imagery, thereby highlighting the embodied encounters from which contemporary representations were materialized.

KEYWORDS:

• Engraving
• sketch
• encounter
• re-presentation
• materiality
• painting

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the support and enthusiasm of Bronwen Douglas, whose work has enhanced my understanding of the significance of visual representations as historical texts. Our close collaboration on the art of the Bruni d’Entrecasteaux voyage was facilitated during 2014 by my receipt of a Vice-Chancellor’s College Visiting Artist Fellowship in the College of Asia & the Pacific at the Australian National University. I thank Professor Ian Young, then Vice-Chancellor of the University, for this award.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.