Whanu Binal Indigenous Entrepreneur Program

My name is Howard Butler, Joe. Everyone knows me by Joe. 

I'm a Gooreng Gooreng, Gurang, Gangulu Iman man. Done a lot of artworks, I've done this painting. 

This painting is building a strong foundation. Now this painting I get inspiration from, the university to pass on a bit of information to me which I collated together and put, put together this painting. 

Now the painting represents building and building our businesses, our business. So, from the centre we got circle dots. Now the dots are building from one colour and they're just getting bigger and bigger. That that represents our, our knowledge, on the business. So, knowledge on the business and around the edge of that circle, we've got U shapes. 

Now the U shapes represent people sitting, and the footprints coming into the centre. Now the footprints are the students coming into to learn the business and on the outside, we've got worker bees and ants. So, what they represent is, you got the ants, the Ants are like a regimented group. 

They like to work together, they'd like to follow each other, so they're the followers, I’m calling them and they build a big strong foundation as in there, well their nests is the strong foundation for them, so they build everything there and they take it all back. So, they all work together to bring things back. Now with the bees, the bees I call them fellas, those fellows there, they would like to go out and spread their wings as the saying says. 

They spread their wing they get out and they come back and they build their business up from Centre. So, they build it up and make it bigger and bigger and bigger, as in the hive, so they work all together and then that virtually represents the whole painting. So, the colours, the colours are chosen, I've chosen all the colours as an earth colours, because our people, we always like to we always like to use those colours and the brass colour that I put in there, but I like to do things that kind of three dimension. So, everything that I do is three dimension when I do paintings. I do a mixture of paintings, a mixture of paints. I'll use acrylics, so the acrylics come together well for me. 

They dry quicker and they work real well with me.