Introduction




View of Story Bridge from Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, 2000
Photograph by Richard Stringer
Reproduced with permission





Fortitude (For:ti:tude) n.

[L. fortitudo, fr. Fortis strong. See Fort.]

  1. Power to resist attack; strength; firmness. [Obs.] ‘The fortitude of the place is best known to you.’ Shak.
  2. That strength or firmness of mind which enables a person to encounter danger with coolness and courage, or to bear pain or adversity without murmuring, depression, or despondency; passive courage; resolute endurance; firmness in confronting or bearing up against danger or enduring trouble. ‘Extolling patience as the truest fortitude.’ Milton.
Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.’ Locke.

Synonyms — Courage; resolution; resoluteness; endurance; bravery.

In January 1849, the good ship Fortitude carried approximately 250 free settlers from Gravesend, England into the colony at Moreton Bay. Unprepared to receive them, the best the colony could offer these immigrants was swampy land in the valley that ran down the northern side of Spring Hill to the river. Eighty per cent of these new residents of ‘Fortitude Valley’ were aged 35 years and under. Enterprising and industrious, many of them went on to become well known pioneers of Brisbane. These days Fortitude Valley has once again become an artistic, corporate and residential centre, a focus of youthful energy and creative activity. ‘Fortitude: New Art from Queensland’ is partly named in praise of that colourful area — not for the place so much, but for the qualities it represents.

The pursuit of a living in the visual arts necessarily requires forbearance. However, the dogged inspiration demonstrated in the careers of the ten artists brought together in ‘Fortitude: New Art from Queensland’ deserves special recognition. Although not all ‘emerging’ artists, they are, nonetheless, all under the age of 35 and producing particularly fresh and exploratory work. They work in a range of media representing all that is possible in contemporary art practice and they bring to their work the richness that is bestowed by lives lived to the full.

This exhibition marks the Queensland Art Gallery’s first major collaboration with the ENERGEX Brisbane Festival. It has been carefully devised to correlate with both the vision of youthfulness and accessibility that underpins Festival planning, and the Gallery’s commitment to professional development and cultural processes. The artists, the coordinating curators, the catalogue and website designers, and the many other talented young people involved in the project, all belong to a generation well able to articulate what might happen next.