I’m Captain Moonlite, and I’m afraid of no one!*

Bushrangers occupy a very special and mythic place in Australian culture. Despite their criminality, they have become cultural heroes, folk legends, and romanticised symbols of masculinity. The story of the most famous bushranger of all, Ned Kelly, exists somewhere between documented history and collective invention, shaped as much by storytelling as by fact.

Andrew George Scott, the bushranger known as Captain Moonlite, was a contemporary of Kelly’s (although Scott resented being associated with such riff-raff as the Kelly Gang). In 1869, Scott was serving as an Anglican lay preacher when it is alleged, under the pseudonym of Captain Moonlite, he robbed the Mount Egerton Bank. He evaded arrest for a number of years, but was arrested in Sydney in 1872 and sent back to Victoria, where he was eventually sentenced to hard labour in HM Prison Pentridge.

After his release from prison, Scott attempted to live a respectable life but, due to his criminal record, struggled to find employment. So, in 1879, he gathered a gang of young men and took to bushranging in north-east Victoria. During a shootout with police at Wantabadgery Station near Wagga Wagga, NSW, one gang member, James Nesbitt, was fatally shot. Scott was captured and later hanged in Sydney for his crimes.

Birds do it, bees do it, even bearded Australian bushrangers do it.

The works included in this exhibition draw in part on the documented life of Captain Moonlite, including his relationship with fellow gang member James Nesbitt. The two men were almost certainly lovers, even if they may not have understood or defined their relationship in the same terms we use for same-sex relationships today. When Scott went to the gallows, he wore a ring fashioned from a lock of Nesbitt’s hair, and his final wish was “…to be buried beside my beloved James Nesbitt, the man with whom I was united by every tie which could bind human friendship. We were one in hopes, in heart and soul, and this unity lasted until he died in my arms.”

So, you’re Captain Moonlite? Well, you aren’t what I expected you to be…*

Rather than attempting a faithful retelling, the works in this exhibition use Moonlite as a theatrical device through which to explore Australian masculinity. Blurring colonial folklore with camp sensibilities, the images present a version of the past that is only as truthful as the artist chooses it to be. Here, the bushranger becomes an antihero who exposes masculinity and history as things that are constructed, performed, and endlessly embellished.

Martin John Lee is a visual artist based in Castlemaine, on Dja Dja Wurrung Country.

*Quotes are from the 1940s radio drama series ‘Rogues Gallery’, produced by Dorothy Crawford and written by Rex Rienits. The series recounted “the shameful lives of famous scoundrels”. Captain Moonlite was the subject of the series’ first episode.

Catalogue coming soon