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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Australian Indigenous & Oceanic Art
• Sale Date:
  21 Jul 2015 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  30
• Lot Description:
  Emily Kame (Kngwarreye)
  (circa 1910-1996)
  Untitled (Alalgura) (1990)
  synthetic polymer paint on linen
  153 x 122 cm?
• Provenance:
  Delmore Gallery, Northern Territory; Coventry Gallery, Sydney; Private Collection, Sydney (acquired from the above in 1990); This painting is sold with Delmore Gallery documentation.
• Exhibited:
  Emily Kngwarreye, Coventry Gallery, Sydney, 8 May - 2 June 1990; Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Alhalkere-Paintings from Utopia, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 20 February - 13 April 1998; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 May - 19 July 1998; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 8 September - 22 November 1998; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 13 February - 26 April 1999, cat. no. 41; Utopia: the Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Osaka, Japan, 26 February - 13 April 2008; The Natio
• References:
  Laura Murray Cree and Nevill Drury, Australian Painting Now, Craftman House, G+B International Arts, Sydney, 2000, pg 176.
• Notes:
  As an artist who is internationally acclaimed for the controlled power of bold colour and vibrant brushstrokes, Emily Kngwarreye was also capable of extraordinary subtlety. Over a two-year period during 1990 and 1991 the artist produced a series of largely untitled canvas paintings that rewrote the history of so-called Aboriginal dot painting. Untitled (Alalgura) (1990) is an exquisite example of this style. Few artists can make so much happen within this subtle tonal range and subdued pallet. Gridded lines suggesting yam roots, body painting, and emu tracks, which featured in her early paintings, now lie deeply hidden beneath an almost trance-like application of overlaid dotting. The effect of endless space and veiled shifting forms is arguably as close as an outsider can achieve in appreciating the non-linear sense of time and space encompassed by the creative imagination of the Dreaming. Such is the talent of this elderly woman who invented her own idiom of translating an Aboriginal sense of self, her awelye, into an art form of universal appeal. Kngwarreye spoke little English and lived on her traditional homelands in desert country northeast of Alice Springs. Her visual skills derived from body painting applied for ceremonial performances, sand stories involving illustrations drawn on the ground whilst narrating, and decorating wooden implements. When her community successfully contested a land rights case for the Utopia pastoral lease, Kngwarreye embarked on a number of workshops designed to initiate economic self-sufficiency. One of these workshops involved teaching community members the Asian technique of batik where Aboriginal artists could apply their traditional designs to an introduced method of fabric painting. Kngwarreye developed her skill with overlaid elements during a period of batik making in the late 1970s and 1980s. The technique involved building an image through successive stages of dye-runs, and using drops and fluid lines of hot wax to create designs. Kngwarreye applied this skill to her later canvas painting technique but achieved a greater degree of transparency between the layers by the subtle interspersion of different hues. Dots have always been an element of Aboriginal symbols in the desert and are still evident in local rock art that dates back many thousands of years. They are used to represent figures and they also serve as a form of in-fill that adds a sense of energy and spectacle to the depicted subject matter. Kngwarreye's field of dots during her 1990/91 phase of canvas painting amplifies traditional dot-making's capacity for explosive energy and spectacle. Untitled (Alalgura) (1990) was recognized as a superior example of Kngwarreye's short but stunning period of refined dotting when it was included in the Queensland Art Gallery's Kngwarreye survey exhibition that toured to Australia's premier public art galleries in 1998 and 1999 (Emily Kame Kngwarreye - Alhalkere - Paintings from Utopia). The painting also travelled to Japan as part of Kngwarreye's solo exhibition at the National Art Centre in Tokyo and the National Museum of Art at Osaka in 2008 (Utopia: the Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye). This latter show opened later in 2008 as the largest survey exhibition of the artist, 120 pieces, at the National Museum of Australia. Dr Sally Butler
• Estimate:
  A$80,000 - 120,000
• 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.