Interview with iconic Australian designer Linda Jackson
In this feature for Academy Travel, Distinguished Professor Peter McNeil interviews iconic Australian designer Linda Jackson.
This is an important moment to celebrate Linda, as the National Gallery of Australia has just announced the acquisition of a major archive of the fashion and textiles created by Linda and Jenny Kee, including Flamingo Park Archives.
About Linda Jackson AO
A long career as one of Australia’s most renowned textile artists and fashion designers has taken Linda Jackson around Australia on wanderings through the outback of Oz – she is a true pioneer and free spirit of Australian Art Fashion.
Linda studied fashion design and photography in Melbourne and in the late 1960’s left Australia to live in New Guinea and travel to Paris and London via Asia. Returning to Sydney in 1973, Linda met kindred spirit Jenny Kee and together they created Flamingo Park. Colourful creativity was their flamboyant force, along with staging iconic fashion parades that became famous for their energetic amalgamation of art, fashion and music for the next decade.
In 1980 Linda made her first trip to the Red Centre, and this became the theme of Linda’s Bush Couture collection, as well as the making of her own swag. An invitation to visit Utopia Station in 1982 near Alice Springs led to a collaboration with Aboriginal women to turn their batik fabrics into fashion.
This was the beginning of Linda’s long journey working in Indigenous communities throughout remote Australia, including Yuendumu, Santa Teresa, Maruku, Hermannsburg (Central Australia) and Ramingining, Maningrida and Bathurst Island (NT), resulting in long term friendships and her managing art and textile projects across the country.
Jackson’s label Bush Couture was launched in 1982 from her new studio in Kings Cross. This decade was full of flamboyant inventions and exhibitions – Opal Jewellery and perfume, cabaret style fashion shows, original handprinted-textiles emulating the bush and fluorescent Australian gems. Costumes for musicians, singers, live performance and video clips ensued.
The National Gallery of Australia has acquired over 80 of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson’s pieces, including some from their personal archives.
Linda and Emily, Utopia 1982 - Photograph by Fran Moore
Since closing her Bush Couture Studio in 1992, Linda relocated to Oenpelli, Gunbalanya (Arnhem Land) where she worked with the women at the now famous Injalak Art Centre from early 1994, screen printing and creating artwork. She continued travelling and living in remote parts of WA, NT and North Queensland, working in Indigenous communities, managing Art projects and painting and exhibiting her art and textiles in private and regional Galleries.
Columba Bangalang Orsto and daughter - Tiwi Design Studio 1995 | Photo by Linda Jackson
Linda documented the amazing Australian landscape in a myriad of ways, revealing a colourful and unique passion for telling the stories of her travels. Recent exhibitions include Tropical Design (2019) at Cairns Art Gallery and Step into Paradise (2020) at Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, featuring the creative friendship and work together of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson. The terrific documentary “Step into Paradise” was released in 2022 and further exhibitions were rolled out at NGA, Canberra, Mudgee ArtsPrecinct, Bathurst Art Gallery, Bundaberg Art Gallery and Adelaide AGSA 2023-2025. Linda’s book “The Art of Fashion” filled with her Zen photographs of her ‘frocks’ in the landscape was published in 1987.
Sydney, Australia - March 6, 2020 | Exhibition in Powerhouse Museum, Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson: “Step into Paradise”
Linda embraces art, design, sustainability, age-old techniques and dyeing methods, the power of the Australian bush, and a model of mutual exchange, which has always driven her work.
I loved sleeping in my swag under the stars The bright endless sky
The miles of green Spinifex
My art comes from the spirit within
The spirit within the magical landscape and nature The essence of nature – the rocks
The dirt –the red dirt Inspired me.
Walking on Country Footprints in the red dirt
‘The Romance of the Swag’, courtesy of Linda Jackson
When did you first become interested in Indigenous Australian textiles Linda?
I found my first pieces of Tiwi handprinted fabric in the late 70’s and was intrigued and wanted to know more; I knew about the batik from Ernabella (a former mission). In 1982 the Hogarth Gallery, Paddington, held a Tiwi exhibition involving designers and Tiwi collaborations. My red ochre silk with a collage of Tiwi prints is now in the collection of the NGV.
How did your first visit to Utopia come about?
Travelling to Alice Springs in 1980 inspired the Flamingo Park fashion show “The Red Centre” from the Heart. Hearing about the batik works being made in the community out of Alice was incredible as well as meeting the women at a craft show in Sydney: the invitation to visit followed. And a collaboration started with at first having their textiles in my Kings Cross Studio. In 1982 I was then off to Utopia to meet the artists in their community draped in the women’s silk batiks.
What were your observations of the works that the women were creating there ?
I loved watching the artists creating their batiks sitting around the fire, marking and drawing their stories onto silk and cotton. The batik technique seemed to suit the heat and red dust of the desert.
What other communities did you visit?
The women from Yuendumu came into my Kings Cross studio and over the years I visited their community and Art centre many times. Batik, screen printing, hand-painting cloth was starting to flourish and spread across the desert and the Top End. I was travelling into Maningrida, Ramingining, Oenpelli, Hermansburg, and Santa Teresa with my textile skills as my passport.
How did your contacts evolve?
Once the women in the Communities learnt that I would love to visit for art projects many invitations were had. As I loved being in remote Country and living a simple life out bush and enjoyed learning about Country etc and loved collaborating on all sorts of studio, workroom, printing and other projects I could fit into Community life.
I was wanting to bring the Bush into the city and to travel to the remote areas to be at the source, the essence of the country. I filled my studio space with the elements of the desert, installations of rusty tin, galvo, red dirt , billy cans, gum-leaves - and ‘Bush Couture’ was born.
I loved creating artworks and fashion from the environment. Aboriginal art was on thewalls and original cloths and textiles starred in the shows.
Parts of this story are drawn from the NGA as well as McNeil’s meetings with L.Jackson at DAAF Larrakia / Darwin and Gunbalanya, August 2024, and a new interview conducted in June 2025.
Read more about Linda Jackson’s collection now at the National Gallery in this recent ABC article >
Experience the 19th ABORIGINAL ART FAIR
& INDIGENOUS FASHION AWARDS in Darwin this August
2024 DAAF | Photos by Dr Peter McNeil
This six-day tour, led by fashion historian Dr Peter McNeil, is an amazing opportunity to hear from Linda about the Indigenous Australian fashion and textiles revolution, which joins art, music and film in reshaping Australian identity, as well as her life long career working across many formats of art and fashion.
The tour takes in the 19th Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair (DAAF), including VIP attendance to the iconic Country to Couture Indigenous Fashion Parade, and is highlighted by an unforgettable private tour, on country, to West Arnhem Land, where we will tour the award-winning Injalak Arts Centre in the heart of Gunbalanya and enjoy a cruise down Kakadu’s spectacular East Alligator River.
