Deutscher and Hackett

“In taking up painting in 1995, Prince found a medium through which he could retain the essence of his active ceremonial life. His paintings have a musicality imparted by the lively staccato-effect of dots and intermittent bars, as if to be read like the sheet music for an improvised symphony. Prince’s uninhibited use of colour belies the origins of these designs, which were passed on by his ancestors as marks on the bodies of ceremonial participants. His early works were painted on scraps of cardboard and other found materials, their compact size emulating the proportions of the body. In his last years, Prince ‘upped the ante’, scaling up his Body Marks paintings to assert his cultural authority as a Larrakia elder, as embodied in his statement, ‘… I make the marks.’”

Perkins, H. and Pinchbeck, C., Tradition today: Indigenous art in Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014, (revised edition)