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Forthcoming Exhibitions - Japingka Gallery Australia
Paintings from the Great Sandy and Central Deserts
Striking ancient desert topography – streaming sandhills, shallow swamps and life-saving waterholes – are the predominant subjects of Japingka’s two new exhibitions.
In Gallery1, in association with Watiyawanu Artists of Amunturrngu, Japingka Gallery presents the distinctive, finely painted graphic works from the Mt Liebig community. Located at the base of Amunturrungu, the original local name for Mt Liebig, this community has become home to renowned artists in a very short time.
Despite its proximity to Papunya Tula, one of the earliest desert art communities, Mt Liebig started to engage in the painting movement only in the early 1990s. It didn’t take long, however, for its talented artists to gain prominence. It was the success in the late ‘90s of Lilly Kelly Napangardi’s elegant and finely detailed sandhills paintings that placed the Watiyawanu artists firmly on the art connoisseurs’ radar.
Since 2000, Wentja Napaltjarri (Shorty Lungkata’s daughter), Lilly Kelly Napangardi and Ngoia Pollard Naplatjarri (winner of the Telstra Art Award in 2006) have been increasingly seen in prestigious art prizes and exhibitions around the nation and beyond. 2004 marked the year that they were joined by senior Pitjantjatjara medicine man, Tjapaltjarri Whiskey. Tjapaltjarri Whiskey spent the final four years of his life painting full-time, all day every day. Producing spectacularly original work from the start, he gained rapid recognition as one of Australia’s top and most collectable contemporary artists. He passed away in late 2008, but his singular paintings of the Rockholes near the Olgas live on to tell his dreaming story.
Japingka is proud to show works by all of the above Watiyawanu artists and others, including Fabrianne Peterson Nampitjinpa, Lynette Corby Nungurrayi, Maisie Campbell Naplatjarri and Maureen Morgan Naplatjarri.
In Gallery 2, Biddee Baadjo is holding her first solo exhibition, showing recent works painted at Wangkatjungka Community during 2009. Her paintings are luminous and evocative, recreating the sandhill country of the artist's ancestral country adjacent to the Canning Stock Route in Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert. Biddee Baadjo began painting in 1994, developing a strong stylistic approach that is distinctive amongst painters from her community. She loads her brush with paint and pushes it loosely over the canvas, creating soft, lush lines of colour. Biddee is increasingly recognised by art lovers and collectors and Japingka is thrilled to honour her with her first solo exhibition.
Exhibitions open on Friday 16 October at 6.30pm and continue until 18 November.
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