Artist: Kudditji Kngwarreye | Title: My Country | Year: 2007 | Medium: synthetic polymer on linen | Dimensions: 120 x 180 cm
PROVENANCE
Commissioned by Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney NSW
Accompanied by working photographs.
EXHIBITED
June-Sep. 2012, 'Big Country: Australian Aboriginal Art Coast to Coast', Jeffrey Moose Gallery Seattle USA
ARTWORK STORY
This is an Emu Dreaming site associated with Men’s ceremonies. Kudditji's paintings are romantic images of his country, accentuating the colour and form of the landscape including the depth of the sky in the rainy 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
Commissioned by Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney NSW
Accompanied by working photographs.
EXHIBITED
June-Sep. 2012, 'Big Country: Australian Aboriginal Art Coast to Coast', Jeffrey Moose Gallery Seattle USA
ARTWORK STORY
This is an Emu Dreaming site associated with Men’s ceremonies. Kudditji's paintings are romantic images of his country, accentuating the colour and form of the landscape including the depth of the sky in the rainy 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
