Welcome,

My birth name is Susan Charles, I am aged forty three years, my Tribe/nation/clan is the Jaara,Yorta Yorta Peoples of Victoria / Tasmania, my skin name is Knuppaknunka given me from Mum Glenda of Alice Springs, in the country now known as Australia.

Through my own experience as a child victim of family violence, alcoholism and child sexual abuse I was victim also of what is now referred to as the stolen generations I had become an expert in blocking out the pain of trauma and the grieving process by self-medicating to replace the chemical imbalances, such as seretonin endorphins caused through trauma.

At age seven I started drinking wine and beer to block out the reality of what was happening, and living in denial. It was then the bad behavioral problems associated with all my emotions being suppressed, not believed, not listen to as a child to what was happening to us, or how we felt about it all, my feelings began to come out in a wrong way full of anger to myself and others, but in my case rather than hurt anyone else I'd self mutilate and abuse myself, through all of this no-one knew or understood my behavior.

I didn’t even know why I was behaving the way I was, stigmatized stereotyped and victimized labeled as un-controllable, mental alcoholic drug addict etc, I was on a self-destruct path.

In 1995 I was living in Alice Springs Australia just drinking myself into oblivion, my two older children were in Victoria, one kept hearing me singing out and the other had nightmares that I was dying, it was their talking me into rehabilitation that I owe my life to those, two children who did not want their Mother to die.

The rehabilitation program really worked for me because it was done on a cultural spiritual level appropriate to the Indigenous peoples cultural spiritual belief system that is in all of us, it was here that I'd come to a spiritual connection/awakening in regards to my whole lifestyle, my connection to the Creator and Ancestors before me and to the Lore/Law of creation and my role in it became so clear, which is to caretaker all these things and that was the Lore/Law.

Having previously come out of all this ugliness and the shroud of darkness that covered my whole existence, I started to see things for the first time, it was during this time I was walking along the beach and I'd seen all these beautiful colors, like someone had taken a paint brush and painted perfect lines into the cliff side, I stopped in awe and wonderment and I broke down in tears giving thanks to the Creator for this wonderful gift of seeing all these colors of the rainbow, it was at that time I pledged to use my (heart)art for healing and to use my gift to tell the story of the Creator/creation Mother earth and the struggles of our peoples.

All my paintings and art work is done on a spiritual level, I believe that I am just the tool behind the brush so to speak, the Creator and Ancestors are the story holders, I paint the images they give me and through seeing and experiencing the struggles of our peoples especially the Elders and our Children, our children sweet and innocent little lives abused and traumatized.

Because of my own abusive childhood I wanted to be able to work with children, even to the point of going on a hunger strike for twenty four days in 1997 to lobby the Government and all departments responsible for child protection, not only for personal reasons, but for all the other children and Elders that are not being heard.

These are all the areas of life that are affecting our peoples and they are not getting the physical and financial support through the system or other government agencies who profess to be there for Aboriginal Peoples.Legal services, Native title, Stolen Generations, Child Abuse, Forcible removal, Imprisonment, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Genocidal acts imposed upon our Children and Elders under a racist system called common law.

I see that with the guidance of the Creator, Ancestors and council of Elders that I could use these gifts to be able to raise the awareness and to educate the wider communities as to our peoples struggles and through my artwork raise funds and donate my works to grass roots peoples to assist in becoming independent from government funding, this in itself would be a big healing for our peoples, that we don't have to feel like beggars in our own country.

This is my reward to take that burden and to ease that stress load, to protect our Children and Elders, to assist in giving them a happy life, all the things I didn’t have, and to sit again by the fires of our Ancestors

Thankyou,
Sue Charles.
August 2000