The scene is taken from Louis Auguste de Sainsons’s hand-coloured lithograph Vue du Port du Roi Georges printed in 1833. We look out over King George Sound from the right bank of the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour. In the foreground members of the d’Urville expedition interact with a group of Indigenous men. Overlaying the scene is a red target. Apart from the obvious relation to the rifles held by the explorers the concentric circles give reference to both Jasper Johns painting Target as well as the concentric circles found throughout Indigenous Australian visual language. This period of Nyoongar history marks the beginning of a time where new ideas and new language is introduced; the meaning of the concentric circles changes according to the viewer’s history, culture, education etc. This symbol could be recognised as a campfire, a waterhole, a retail store logo or as the work of an American pop artist.

Christopher Pease, 2005