Artist: Kudditji Kngwarreye | Title: My Country | Year: 2012 | Medium: synthetic polymer paint on canvas | Dimensions: 129 x 150 cm
PROVENANCE
Direct from the Artist, N.T
Cooee Gallery, NSW
ARTWORK STORY
This painting depicts an interpretation of the Emu Dreaming site and ceremonies associated with Mens Business. Ten years ago Kudditji began to experiment with paint to eradicate the pointillist style altogether and use a heavily loaded paint brush to sweep broadly across the canvas in stages, similar to the western landscape plane, these paintings were romantic images of his country, accentuating the colour and form of the landscape including the depth of the sky in the raining season and in the summer heat.
Artist Profile
COMMUNITY/REGION
Utopia, NT
LANGUAGE
Eastern Anmatyerre
BIOGRAPHY
Kudditji Kngwarreye was born about 1928 at Alhalkere at Utopia Station, located about 270 kms northeast of Alice Springs. In his younger life, he worked throughout the Central Desert, travelling widely as a stockman, and working in mineral and gold mines. A custodian for ceremonial sites located in his country at Utopia Station, many of his paintings refer to sites at Boundary Bore, where men's initiation ceremonies are performed. He began painting his precisely dotted Emu Dreaming paintings, featuring ranks of coloured roundels and other 'hieroglyphs' on a chequered or dotted background, in 1986. Kudditji was the younger brother of renowned artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye. He painted only sparingly until his sister’s death in 1996 after which he experimented with a number of gestural styles involving looser brushstrokes and schematic composition. However the demand for his earlier, male iconographic style saw Kudditji return to it, and it was not until 2003 that he began to exhibit the saturated patchwork colour paintings with which he is principally associated today… Continue Reading
PROVENANCE
Direct from the Artist, N.T
Cooee Gallery, NSW
ARTWORK STORY
This painting depicts an interpretation of the Emu Dreaming site and ceremonies associated with Mens Business. Ten years ago Kudditji began to experiment with paint to eradicate the pointillist style altogether and use a heavily loaded paint brush to sweep broadly across the canvas in stages, similar to the western landscape plane, these paintings were romantic images of his country, accentuating the colour and form of the landscape including the depth of the sky in the raining season and in the summer heat.
Artist Profile
COMMUNITY/REGION
Utopia, NT
LANGUAGE
Eastern Anmatyerre
BIOGRAPHY
Kudditji Kngwarreye was born about 1928 at Alhalkere at Utopia Station, located about 270 kms northeast of Alice Springs. In his younger life, he worked throughout the Central Desert, travelling widely as a stockman, and working in mineral and gold mines. A custodian for ceremonial sites located in his country at Utopia Station, many of his paintings refer to sites at Boundary Bore, where men's initiation ceremonies are performed. He began painting his precisely dotted Emu Dreaming paintings, featuring ranks of coloured roundels and other 'hieroglyphs' on a chequered or dotted background, in 1986. Kudditji was the younger brother of renowned artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye. He painted only sparingly until his sister’s death in 1996 after which he experimented with a number of gestural styles involving looser brushstrokes and schematic composition. However the demand for his earlier, male iconographic style saw Kudditji return to it, and it was not until 2003 that he began to exhibit the saturated patchwork colour paintings with which he is principally associated today… Continue Reading
