‘Wild White Man’ Series is Justin Martino’s personal exploration of the infamous William Buckley (1780–1856). Buckley was an English convict transported to Australia who escaped shortly after arriving in Port Phillip in 1803 and survived for more than 30 years living with the Wathaurong Aboriginal people. Believed dead by colonial authorities, Buckley was adopted into the Indigenous community, learning their language, customs, and ways of life, and existing entirely outside European society. When settlers arrived in 1835, he re-emerged and acted as a mediator between Indigenous people and colonists due to his unique position between cultures. Later pardoned, Buckley attempted to reintegrate into colonial life, though he never fully belonged to either world. His extraordinary journey has since become a powerful symbol of survival, displacement, and cultural intersection in Australian history.

‘Wild White Man’ Series is aptly named as he existed between two cultures and identities. Through the work, Martino examines Buckley’s mythologised story as both a historical narrative and a psychological landscape, using figurative abstraction to reflect themes of exile, survival, and transformation. The painting blurs boundaries between past and present, civilisation and wilderness, mirroring Buckley’s own liminal existence. Expressive gestures and symbolic forms evoke tension and adaptation, positioning Buckley not only as a historical subject, but as a broader metaphor for belonging, otherness, and the complexity of human identity within the Australian context.

Featured above:
‘Wild White Man' Portrait Ink on paper.
Rick Amor Drawing Prize Finalist 2014, Ballarat Regional Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia.