Eating a sandwich on a park bench, something caught Chapman’s eye in the near distance.
“I saw something fall under a tree, and then it seemed to walk over to another tree,” he says. “I’ve got a pet cat at home, and it didn’t move like a cat, that’s for sure. That personal experience speaks to the fact there are perhaps oversized feral cats out there but myths don’t come from nowhere. They don’t just create themselves, so clearly the community over time has been seeing something.”
Toby Chapman and artist Blak Douglas with the work he provided for the exhibition.Credit: Rhett Wyman
Blak Douglas, who grew up in the region, has contributed a large work on canvas featuring an Indigenous hunter, plenty of footy shapes – and a big black panther. Douglas grew up in an era where racism was routine and racist slurs heard almost daily.
“But to have Terry Wickey as an Aboriginal man playing first-grade rugby league on television gave me some kind of hope that there was a possibility for people not to be referred to in such a manner,” he says.
As to the endless debate about whether the panther exists outside locals’ imaginations, Chapman says maybe that is not so important.
“We live in an age where everything can apparently be proved or disproved,” he says. “We can photograph everything and have it on TikTok or Instagram immediately. Maybe the panther can exist in that liminal zone of imagination. And who doesn’t love a bit of mystery?”
Spot the Difference, Penrith Regional Gallery, Emu Plains. Until February 16.
