The Koorie Heritage Trust is proud to present a range of exclusive merchandise based on artworks by the late Josh Muir (Gunditimara, Yorta Yorta and Barkindji), currently showing in JXSH MVIR: Forever I Live at the Koorie Heritage Trust, Birrarung Building, Fed Square (9 March – 14 July 2024).

JXSH MVIR: Forever I Live is the Koorie Heritage Trust's second solo exhibition of Josh Muir's work, and the first since his passing in 2022.

Featuring works from lenders and collectors across Australia, the exhibition showcases Josh's short but prolific artistic career during which he explored Country, culture, identity, colonisation, mental health, addiction, loss and grief.

We are also incredibly delighted and privileged to have worked with Shanaya Sheridan, Josh's partner, and Justine Berg, Josh's mother, as guest curators for the exhibition.

About the Artwork:

Josh had a keen interest in pop culture and incorporated a range of symbolic elements in his artworks, developing a suite of personal iconography over the course of his career.

Forever I Live (among other works in the exhibition) features a self-portrait of Josh wearing a three-pronged crown. In reference to the exhibition Josh Muir: What’s on your mind? at Bendigo Art Gallery in 2019, the exhibition curator Shonae Hobson identified that Josh “poetically utilises powerful symbols that speak to broader social issues of black identity while shedding light on the importance of Indigenous culture and connection to traditional Country as a means of dealing with personal struggles. Synonymous with power and sovereignty, the gold crown […] is a recurring symbol for many black artists working in an urban context and has been adopted in the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Reko Rennie” (Shonae Hobson, 2019).

Josh’s use of the crown as a recurrent symbol carries a range of meanings, associations and possible influences such as these. Throughout his career, Josh repeatedly created self-portraits of himself wearing a crown or seated on a throne, incorporating symbols of status and power often associated with European culture as an act of reclaiming sovereignty. 

Other symbols that feature in this artwork (and others in the exhibition) include: palm trees and roses adorning Josh’s self-portrait, Aboriginal flag, diamonds, crosses, digital ‘dripping paint’, and ‘JMUIR’ text.