Keeping Score 2022

Oil painting on old battered tin plate that features a female football player foregrounded in colour with black and white players in the background from 1915 — Monsoon Money (Curtin Wesley Tigers 2021) with women from early games (Perth WA circa 1915), Oil on Tin 15x15cm approx, 2022

‘the unofficial record keeper for women’s footy’

Taylah Strano, RTR FM

‘Keeping Score’, celebrates growth in women’s football from the first recorded game in 1915 through to today.

Players in action are painted in oils onto discarded metal scoreboard numbers. The plates are then arranged to reference dates and statistics relevant to the history of Western Australian women’s football (AFL).

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a positive story of the power of community and inclusion

Keeping Score features players from the West Kimberley, Perth and Geraldton regions between 2016 and 2021.

I usually work from my own source photography (smaller white plates), however following the gift of a set of old black plates from Geraldton, I sought to collaborate with photographers Barry Mitchell with his team from Snapaction Sports, and Yamaji-Wajarri-Badimaya and Ngapuhi man, Tamati Smith, to depict the women playing in the Great Northern Football League since its inception in 2017.

Large pink football run-out banner with central slit that says 'Ladies, however ingenious and versatile, are apparently not suited to football playing' stitched in large patchwork letters — ‘Ladies, however ingenious and versatile are apparently not designed for football playing’ -The West Australian 1895. Fabric Banner 5.5mx3mt

The Great Northern Women’s Football League

The GNWFL kicked off in 2018 following a couple of exhibition matches in the previous year (2017). Within the 5 years since, the senior women’s league has expanded to the full quota of 7 teams: Brigades, Chapman Valley, Northhampton, Railways, Towns, Mullewa Saints, and Demon Rovers in 2021.

The black score plates were gifted to me through Brian Baker when the GNFL went digital in 2021. In this series each team across each of the playing years is represented.

The rough, textural quality of the plate surface is the natural patina that honours the functional legacy of each plate’s history of use.