Drawing on hope for us all
Although a late bloomer in the art world, Goompi Ugerabah is now world-renowned and keen to sow seeds of racial unity, not division.
AS Kevin Rudd’s voice echoed out of the speakers on a hot February day, Goompi Ugerabah clenched his hands.
The Gold Coast-born indigenous artist was working in the storeroom of a fruit shop in Tweed Heads as the then-Prime Minister issued the emotional and longawaited apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.
“Bulls---,” muttered the white man working next to him, shooting dark looks in Goompi’s direction.
“I tried to ignore it,” says Goompi, born Stephen Larcombe at Southport Hospital.
“He kept going on repeating it so I just snapped. I was ready to fight him but I just jumped on my pushy and rode home.”
When Goompi arrived home, he found his mother listening to the same radio broadcast, crying.
It was then he found out how close his mother came to becoming a part of that lost generation.
“She told me that when she was a little girl, she and her three sisters lived on Sullivan Street in Tweed Heads South and this flash, black car used to rock up all the time. And everyone knew back then that it was a government car.
“When they’d see it drive up, her mum – my grandmother – used to push them all out the back door. The elder sisters would grab them all and hide them under the house.
“They were trying to take them because they had a white father and a black mother.
“It happened three times. On the fourth time, a white neighbour ran down to the river, where my grandfather was a professional fisherman and warned him.
“He came back to the house with an oar and said ‘if you ever come back here I will hunt you down, every single one of you who try to take my kids away’. He said, ‘I feed them, I clothe them and they go to school – everything you want. Don’t ever come back here again’. And they didn’t.
“The Stolen Generation are not a story from long ago and far away. It was only yesterday and it was right here.”
But the most shocking part of the story is still to come.
“I don’t think we should have Sorry Day,” says Goompi.
“We should have a remembrance day, a day to acknowledge what happened – but the word ‘sorry’ seems to be a real trigger.
“Rudd did the right thing, the government needed to apologise for what their predecessors did and acknowledge the suffering of the Stolen Generation – although no apology can heal the pain and torment those people suffered. But the way it has been portrayed is that the whole country needs to apologise, and that’s not true.
“The title of Sorry Day made things worse in a way – like that guy next to me at the fruit shop, it made people angry and it was taken as they were apologising for something they didn’t do. No Aboriginal people asked the public to say sorry. Just to understand and acknowledge that this happened and be compassionate – not to feel blame. It ended up turning a positive into something of a negative.”
Remember the Commonwealth Games? There were two indigenous stories there – the official role of local tribes in the opening
and closing ceremonies, and the unofficial Stolen Wealth protests.
While coverage of the first was positive, much commentary was not. As for the second, it was all negative.
“The guys in the ceremony were my relatives. A lot of people said it was boring and ‘why does everything have to be all about Aboriginals these days’. Anytime attention is called to us, there are always negative views or opinions.
“As for the protests, that was tough. There was a lot of negativity, even from some Aboriginal people. But we all have a right to say what we need to say – the hard part is getting people to listen.”
But for Goompi, there are some powerful ears turning in his direction.
After first picking up a paintbrush in 2002, his works have now been bought by Danish royalty, America’s CIA and the Gold Coast’s own coffee king Kenton Campbell.
His large canvases now fetch far into the five figures, but the reward for Goompi is far more than financial.
While his mother’s people descended from the Gurreng Gurreng tribe near Maryborough, his father, who left the family when Goompi was 10 years old, was Australian-born but of Scottish and French heritage.
Growing up on the Gold Coast, he says he was never sure exactly who he was.
“I’d get bullied for having tan skin by some of the white kids, but then some indigenous kids would call me whitey. I didn’t know who or what I was,” he says.
“When I was in high school at Palm Beach-Currumbin I happened to meet these indigenous dancers, Nunuccal Kunjiel, through my cousins.
“They taught me culture and how to dance like our ancestors. It just flicked a switch in me. I never again questioned who I was.
“I ended up quitting school to dance full time. We used to dance at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. When that group sort of fell apart, I started my own troupe.
“At the start my new troupe Bundjalung Kunjiel did mostly community events, then at one point we were invited to go to Las Vegas where we were going to be in a tribal show. It was unreal. It was like a fairytale – although not with the happy ending we wanted.
“The show didn’t happen – although we did perform at some amazing parties full of Las Vegas royalty, one was hosted by Elvis’s ex-girlfriend – and when I came home I was sort of thinking, what’s next?”
Goompi says the answer came when he saw his cousins painting – and decided to give it a go as well.
He submitted his first artwork to a gallery in Byron Bay and sold it in one week.
“It wasn’t always easy. Because I’m not a full-blooded Aborigine, I felt not every gallery would want to promote me. So I just promoted myself and started building a reputation, plus I had great connections through dancing.
“Now I’m at the point where I have so much demand I can’t keep up. I was just named as a finalist in the Paddington Art Prize and my work has hung alongside some amazing artists over the years, including Emily Kngwarreye and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa.
“One of my artworks about the Brolgas dancing is hanging in the CIA headquarters in America and Princess Benedikte of Denmark – Crown Prince Frederik’s aunt – has an artwork of mine.
“One of my biggest buyers is (Zarraffa’s founder and CEO) Kenton Campbell.
Whether it’s through art or dance, visiting schools or businesses, at home or overseas, he says learning about indigenous culture is the key to a better future and unified Australia.
“Culture is the key not just to me but to my family. And my family includes all of Australia. The more we understand each other, the better.
“It’s easy to think the Gold Coast has little indigenous connection, but it’s huge. In fact, there is a native title claim on the Coast, but it’s important to remember what that means. It does not mean people are going to lose anything. It’s just it will give local Kombumerri custodians more power to negotiate matters on their tribal land.”