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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  22 Jul 2014 ~ 6.30pm (Part 1 - Lots 1 - 198)
  23 Jul 2014 ~ 2.30pm (Part 2 - Lots 199 - 331)
• Lot #:
  120
• Lot Description:
  Tommy Skeen (Tjakamarra)
  (circa 1930-2000)
  Artist's Country (1992)
  synthetic polymer paint on linen
  100 x 50 cm
• Provenance:
  Warlayirti Artists, Western Australia (235/92); Songlines Across Australia Collection, Melbourne
• Notes:
  This painting is sold with a Warlayirti artists certificate. Tommy Skeen's importance in Balgo art history belies the relatively small number of works in his catalogue. His paintings hum with complex imagery and narratives, but are always balanced by the bold spaces he carved out for story. In Yaparnungalangala his dots, looser than those of most men, seem to emanate from and vibrate against these ancestral actions. His stark iconography addresses matters of ceremonial knowledge and ritual practice with a confidence and unselfconsciousness rare in desert art. He knew what he could paint, and played at the boundaries of Balgo art in doing so. As with Wimmitji and his wife Eubena, and many other Balgo couples, it is impossible to discuss the work of Tommy Skeen without acknowledging the collaborative relationship he shared with his wife Millie Skeen. There are paintings by each of them that are virtually impossible to tell apart. They certainly worked on each other's paintings, as so many Balgo couples did, but it was more than that. Their style developed in partnership. Millie's luminous hand often lights his paintings, just as his spare compositions echo in her work. Tommy painted women's stories associated with his country, just as Millie painted some of her husband's Country in her own canvases. Their collaboration transcended conventional notions of men's or women's painting, just as it transcended simplistic notions of authorship. Yaparnungalangala tells part of the Seven Sisters Dreaming as it crosses the Kukatja and Ngardi Country south of Balgo. In this painting an old man has been following the women as they travel across the Country in their creative itineraries. He crouches here, a bold black u-shape in a lightly dappled desert field, watching the women from behind a windbreak as they sing and dance their ceremonies. It is an apt image for reflecting on the remarkable art of Tommy Skeen. Dr John Carty
• Estimate:
  A$10,000 - 15,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.