Known to the unknown –
Gina’s Journey
Gina Sinozich began painting late in life but painted fast. The museum has acquired a series of 14 of
her works which are now on display. Lindl Lawton, curator of post-Federation Immigration, writes
about the paintings, their lengthy gestation, and the experiences they represent.
LIKE MANY refugees after World War
II, artist Gina Sinozich abandoned her
homeland for a destination she knew
almost nothing about. In her work titled
Known to the Unknown she paints a
Croatian landscape stippled with
significant sites – the village of Senovik
where Gina was born, Sinozici the town
where her husband’s family lived, and a
cherished church in the foothills of
Mount Ucka. The vessel Neptunia steams
vertically down-under to a seemingly
uninhabited Australia. Gina’s knowledge
of her new country is encapsulated in a
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clutch of tourist clichés – Aborigines,
Uluru and a kangaroo.
artwork Gina has, in a sense, recreated
her lost family photo albums.
The museum’s new exhibition Gina’s
Journey – from Istria to Australia
documents Gina Sinozich’s voyage from
Istria, Croatia (in the former Yugoslavia)
to Australia in 1956–7. These dazzling,
playful art works painted in a naïve style
tell an intensely personal and powerful
story. Gina fled communist Croatia
secretly, unable to pack mementos or
snapshots that might have aroused the
authorities’ suspicions. Through her
The 14 paintings, most of them
commissioned by this museum in 2003,
comprise a largely chronological account
of Gina’s journey. Gina herself was
involved in curating the exhibition,
providing suggestions on framing and
hanging, and fleshing out the stories
behind each image. Where possible, her
tale is told in her own words.
‘When you go away you are in the air –
you just look to the future – day by
SIGNALS 70 March–May 2005
LEFT: Precious things left behind,
60 x 90 cm
ABOVE: Suez Canal, 46 x 61 cm
BELOW: Known to the unknown,
45 X 90 cm
day’. In the self portrait, Our Story,
Gina hints at her hopes for her ‘dream
land’. She depicts herself perched at the
bow of the Neptunia, plunging towards
Australia, which is inverted and
glowing golden under a night sky. Her
husband Eugen, and two young
children Michael (Vladimiro) and
Jenny (Eugenia) huddle behind her.
The image embodies Gina’s feelings
about the journey, constantly
embracing the future and buoying her
family’s spirits during the anxious
times after leaving Croatia.
It was Gina who finally made the
decision to leave. After World War II,
Croatia was absorbed into the communist
In April 1956, Gina, Michael and Jenny
slipped across the Italian border on the
pretence of visiting her mother in Trieste.
Eugen followed several months later. Gina
could not risk telling anyone, even close
family, they were leaving. In the poignant
Precious things left behind she captures,
on a rain-swept wharf in Rejika, an
imagined farewell to loved ones – her
mother-in-law Maria, her own mother
Antonia, her brother Riko, and her best
friend Gina. ‘I know in my heart it was
raining’, she reflects. The hardest part was
deceiving Riko, who had visited her
children daily and was devastated when
he discovered the family gone. It was
many years before Gina healed the rift
between them, and almost 50 years before
‘When you go away you are in the air – you just
look to the future – day by day’
republic of Yugoslavia governed by
Marshall Josep Tito. Life for the Sinozich
family was difficult. Food was scarce,
Gina queued for bread and milk at 3 am,
and the activities of the secret police, the
UDBA, created an atmosphere of fear
and suspicion. Gina’s mother was gaoled
for two months after her brother fled the
country, and Gina wanted a more secure
future for her children.
SIGNALS 70 March–May 2005
she returned to Croatia to say goodbye in
person and ‘clean out’ her insides.
Gina applied for political asylum in Italy
and was sent to a migrant hostel in Udine
sheltering 3,000 other refugees. Via
Prodamano No 21, depicted in the
painting Queuing for food – Udine
Hostel, was ‘not a happy place’. Food was
monotonous, several families were
OPPOSITE LEFT: Known to the Unknown,
45 x 90 cms
OPPOSITE RIGHT: Cross-section of
Neptunia, 60 x 90 cms.
ABOVE: Leaving Genoa, 61 x 92 cm.
All paintings by Gina Sinozitch, 2003, oil
on board. Photographer A Frolows/ANMM
bundled into the same room, and
refugees lived in limbo waiting months,
sometimes years, for their papers to be
processed. They received a chilly, often
hostile reception from the local Italian
community which faced its own
economic troubles.
After 18 months, Gina finally found her
family’s name – ‘Sinozich departing
Genoa’ – on the hostel notice board.
Asked to choose between Australia and
Canada, Gina and Eugen had selected
Australia, ‘a new country’ that they
believed offered greater opportunities.
Gina treasured her ticket for the Neptunia
and reproduces it, down to the smudged
ink marks, in the painting Our ticket.
In July 1957 the Neptunia departed Italy
for Australia. Life on board ship is
captured in several wonderful, whimsical
images. Cross section of the vessel
Neptunia identifies the ship’s layout –
first and second class cabins for fare-
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paying passengers, and the Sinozich
family’s sleeping quarters in segregated
dormitories below. Although refugees,
they sampled some of the luxuries of
liner travel and The Dining room depicts
elegant waiters dishing up ‘vino’ and
steaming platters of pasta to the Sinozich
family and their fellow passengers.
The ship travelled the Suez route and
Gina was entranced by adobe villages
and Arab traders as the Neptunia slid
through the Suez Canal. The passage
was not always smooth and she
suffered terrible seasickness – ‘As soon
as the ship left’, she recalls, ‘spaghetti
started coming up’. In Seasick Gina
depicts a terrifying storm in the midst
of the Indian Ocean. Swaddled in life
jackets, the Neptunia’s passengers
huddle and heave from the rails of the
pitching vessel.
After a month at sea, the Neptunia
fi nally docked in Melbourne – ‘a
beautiful day – fi nally we put our foot
down on the soil we wanted’. We arrive
in Melbourne 16.8.1957 shows the
Sinozich family clutching their luggage
and disembarking from the vessel. A
passenger train winds from the wharf to
Bonegilla Hostel, where the family
spent several weeks before moving to
Sydney to start their new lives.
Bonegilla, with its private rooms,
‘smorgasboard’ of food and ‘even a little
bit of pocket money’ seemed paradise
compared to the trials of Croatia and
Italy.
The last painting in the exhibition,
though modest, is perhaps the most
moving. In All our possessions arrive in
Melbourne, three small brown suitcases
are inscribed ‘Sinozich – Genova to
Melbourne, Australia’. The image speaks
volumes about how much refugees left
behind and with just how little new lives
were started. Gina’s journey mirrors
those taken by thousands of European
refugees after World War II who also
arrived in Australia with feelings of
trepidation, anticipation, and a few pieces
of battered luggage.
Gina’s Journey – from Istria to Australia
is on display in the Tasman Light Gallery
from 15 February to 15 May 2005.
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SIGNALS 70 March–May 2005
OPPOSITE TOP : Precious
things lef t behind,
46 x 60 cms
OPPOSITE MIDDLE: The
dining room, 60 x 50 cms
OPPOSITE BOTTOM:
Queuing for food – Udine
Hostel, 46 x 61 cm
LEFT: Suez Canal,
46 x 61 cms
Meeting Gina
Kimberly O’Sullivan Steward describes how Gina’s work came
to the National Maritime Collection.
TWO YEARS AGO I went to see an
extraordinary exhibition of paintings
at Kings Cross called The Iraqi War
Series. It was a show by a new artist,
Gina Sinozich, whose work was
causing much excitement and had
drawn a glowing review from the
Sydney Morning Herald.
Sitting apart from the paintings in The
Iraqi War Series was a small painting
titled Departure from Genoa, showing
the migrant ship Neptunia in the Italian
harbour city of Genoa, with
multicoloured buildings and shuttered
windows in the background. I was
drawn to the paintings, but even more
wanted to know about the artist. Who
had painted these very personal pieces
that not only responded so intensely to
the Iraqi war, but alluded to another
story – a migration story?
Exhibition curator Peter Fay, a great
champion of Australian art who had
‘discovered’ Gina in early 2003, led me
to the artist. Over afternoon tea at Gina
Sinozich’s home in Casula, in Sydney’s
SIGNALS 70 March–May 2005
south-western suburbs, she explained
that her children had urged her to write
her life story. Believing that she
couldn’t write well enough in English
to do this, she decided instead to paint
her life.
commission and created an
extraordinary series of paintings
depicting her voyage to Australia. She
was generous enough to donate
additional paintings to the museum,
adding further details to the story.
As we talked long into the afternoon I
was fascinated by Gina’s life, and
especially her migration story. It is rare
for older first-generation migrants to
create art from their own stories. Family
migration stories, whether written,
painted or performed, are usually
created by the children or grandchildren
of migrants, taking the form of ‘my
father’s story’ or ‘my grandmother’s
story’. So Gina’s paintings were all the
more unique.
Gina completed her fi rst painting in
2000, when she was 70 years old, and
now paints full-time at home at
Casula. Her work is increasingly
sought after by collectors, with the
Kings Cross show almost a sell-out
and two of the Iraqi war paintings
purchased by the Australian War
Memorial. ANMM is very proud and
fortunate to have possession of this
remarkable series.
By the time afternoon tea (the first of
many) was over I was convinced that
the museum should commission Gina
to paint her migration story – the
voyage to a country about which she
knew very little, her journey from the
certainties of an old life into the
unknown. Gina accepted the ANMM
Kimberly O’Sullivan Steward was an
ANMM curator in the area of
Immigration history. Page 11