This is one exhibition everyone should see as it relates to a chapter of Western Australian history. It is the culmination of two years research and experimentation granted the artist through an Australia Council Fellowship.

The exhibits seen here are akin to the illustrated pages of a history book. And like all informative tomes, need to be studied as they provide multiple levels of meaning. While reading the paintings we discover the use of light and dark, texture and medium, and more then just a sprinkling of Christian iconography together with Aboriginal motifs. The artist employs these symbols and images as metaphors akin to those carved on ancient rocks, sculpted on tympanums of cathedrals or written in the Bible. With the same non-judgemental approach to facts as found in history books, they tell of the fusion between the Church's concept of God and the Indigenous sense of Spirit. Albeit with an added sense of strength and sadness in the facts.

The artist took time to research the history of the Indigenous populations in the north of Western Australia and to develop new artistic media and methods for presenting her findings. She learned about the abuse suffered by women and children around coastal towns in the first half of the 20th Century and how, with all good intentions for the survival of their body and soul, the Church removed them from their Country. But Country is not just land to Aboriginal people; it is their Spirituality. The children taken into care were taught the precepts of The Church and The Christian Way, which they brought with them when they returned to their Country. Many couldn't fit into either world, old or new, while others were able to connect the two concepts of Religion and Spirituality by recognizing similarities between Bible Stories and The Dreaming.

To artistically express this fusion of Christian dogma and Indigenous spirit, MacDonald looked to how the Protestant Reformation affected 17th century Dutch painters who were able to imbue simple still life and landscape scenes with a Spiritual significance via light and allegory. In this exhibition MacDonald references the influence Christianity had on the Aboriginal Community's expression of their Spirituality and how the two belief systems were able to merge. This is manifested today with Christian churches in Aboriginal communities being decorated with Indigenous motifs.

To tell her story MacDonald combines Indigenous Spiritual motifs of pictorial and linear designs with religious symbols of the Christian Church including Gothic Arch shapes and Icons with doors that open. The majority of exhibits host a hinged icon that when closed depict images relating to the Religion of the Church and when opened reveal Indigenous motifs that refer to the Spirit of the Country. We are invited to examine each exhibit and, where an icon is attached, open the doors. That's when we realize how the souls of displaced people continue to hold onto their Country, their Spirituality, as one cannot not replace the other.

This exhibition needs to be seen. It is one I feel unable to 'review' as it's more then a collection of excellent paintings, it is a lesson in history and strength of spirit. And that's what all good works of Fine Art should always be about.