AUSTRALIAN ART

In the north-east of Australia, the Kimberley region stretches over more than 400,000 square kilometers and has very different types of landscapes: sand beaches on the Indian Ocean, sheltered in isolated creeks, rock plateaus and their rapids, chain of the Bungle-Bungle, Great sand desert and Tamani Desert, where Spinifex grass flourishes (also called Porcupine or Spiny grass), which the Aboriginals use the sap of as glue.

If the first inhabitants of the Kimberley were not subjected to transportation as in the central desert, they nevertheless suffered from the arrival on their territories of Anglo-Saxon stockbreeders and miners, attracted by the gold discovered in Halls Creek in 1886. Besides, at the end of the 1960's, the wages equality imposed by the Australian government had a paradoxical consequence: many Aboriginals had to leave the places where they worked for the stockbreeders, who did not want to employ them any longer. Then some of them left for urban centers like Fitzroy Crossing, others settled near former missions, like Balgo Hills, or obtained from the authorities the permission to create autonomous communities, like that of Warmun, near the Bungle-Bungle chain, in the East Kimberley. In these different centers, the Kimberley painting developed from the 1980's onwards. It evokes either the figures of the Bradshaw men – enigmatic characters inspired by ancient wall paintings, who seem to have existed before the Dreamtime itself (center and north of the region) – or the legend of Ancestors traveling in the desert with their women and apprentices (near Balgo, for example) or again the legends related to the Wandjina Owls – rain and storm goddesses, coming from the sky and the sea – (in the center and north of the region, in Kalumburu) or more simply dune, hill or mountain landscapes (near Warmun).

Even if the first famous works from Balgo date back to the 1940's, it is only – as in the rest of the Kimberley – from the 1980's that painting really developed in this community, after the model of the great centers of the desert, and after the great 1986 exhibition organized by the Perth Museum on the Art of the Great sand Desert established its definitive reputation. Considered an assertion of Aboriginal rights over their lands confiscated by the European settlers, the works produced in Balgo were also tightly linked with religious rites celebrating the "law" (that is to say "Julururu") inherited from the Dreamtime. The first artists (like Peter Sunfly) were initiated and therefore played a central part in these ceremonies. On the one hand, the graphic symbols used by the painters of this community are not different from those of the other desert communities: circles standing for sacred springs and ritual sites, U-shaped forms standing for initiated people gathering there, diverse lines standing for land accidents or Dreamtime tracks). On the other hand, Balgo art is extremely original thanks to its highly colorful and luminous works, painted in a rich palette composed of the deep blue of the sky, the vivid orange of the hills, the crimson grey of the plains and the vivid green of the spinifex bushes. But the artists also exploit the splendid riches of their environment and, to celebrate their land, they adorn it in the most brilliant shades they can find: vivid red and yellow for example. This way, the reality and the imagination of a lost paradise coincide in a dazzling explosion of colors that generates deep energy. After the 1986 exhibition, the second one devoted to Balgo art was precisely entitled "Images of Power".

ARTISTS FROM BALGO HILLS

The first painters from Balgo were above all initiated men belonging to the Kukatja clan, like Peter Sunfly Tjampitjin, Jimmy Njamme or Mick Gill Jaakamara; or women, like Bai Bai Napangarti or Nellie Njamme Napangarti. Others took over from them, like Helicopter TJUNGURRAYI or Ningie Nangala, and many women (often painting together) like Eubena Nampitjin or Ena Gimme Nungurrayi. As early as 1991, the Parisian exhibition entitled "Yapa, Aboriginal painters from Lajamanu and Balgo" greatly contributed to their celebrity and their reputation in France and in Europe. Finally, a new generation (Elizabeth Gordon, Pauline Sunfly, etc.) is successfully following in the first painters' footsteps.

In the north-east of Australia, the Kimberley region stretches over more than 400,000 square kilometers and has very different types of landscapes: sand beaches on the Indian Ocean, sheltered in isolated creeks, rock plateaus and their rapids, chain of the Bungle-Bungle, Great sand desert and Tamani Desert, where Spinifex grass flourishes (also called Porcupine or Spiny grass), which the Aboriginals use the sap of as glue.

If the first inhabitants of the Kimberley were not subjected to transportation as in the central desert, they nevertheless suffered from the arrival on their territories of Anglo-Saxon stockbreeders and miners, attracted by the gold discovered in Halls Creek in 1886. Besides, at the end of the 1960's, the wages equality imposed by the Australian government had a paradoxical consequence: many Aboriginals had to leave the places where they worked for the stockbreeders, who did not want to employ them any longer. Some of them then left for urban centers like Fitzroy Crossing, others settled near former missions, like Balgo Hills or obtained from the authorities the permission to create autonomous communities, like that of Warmun, near the Bungle-Bungle chain, in the East Kimberley. In these different centers, the Kimberley painting developed from the 1980's onwards. It evokes either the figures of the Bradshaw men – enigmatic characters inspired by ancient wall paintings, who seem to have existed before the Dreamtime itself (center and north of the region) – or the legend of Ancestors traveling in the desert with their women and apprentices (near Balgo, for example) or again the legends related to the Wandjina Owls – rain and storm goddesses, coming from the sky and the sea – (center and north of the region, in Kalumburu) or more simply dune, hill or mountain landscapes (near Warmun).

The first artists whose names became famous belonged to the Warmun community and painted essentially with natural ochres reminiscent of the colors of their land. These works, inspired by wall paintings, were first produced on wood panels to be used in their ceremonies, then, as everywhere else, on canvas, but without resorting to acrylic painting or leaving aside ochres, charcoal or kaolin, whereas the Balgo community, for example, had chosen to use very vivid colors.

Warmun artists are specifically keen on representing sacred sites, with bird's eye views of the landscape, and underline the elements of the composition with dotted lines. From this point of view, their painting is very much like that of the Desert, without the narrative dimension though.

ARTISTS FROM WARMUN

From the first years when the Warmun community came to notice, two painters stood out above the others, Queenie McKenzie and Rover Thomas, so much so that the second one was chosen to represent Australia at the 1990 Venice Biennale. While they evoked the sacred sites of the region, they immediately included in their paintings a very strong human and political dimension to denounce the darkest periods of Aboriginal history. For instance, in a very impressive canvas, Queenie McKenzie evoked Rover Thomas's own story as a victim of the missionaries. In a hilly landscape, one can see the figures of helmeted Anglo-Saxon settlers, and of Aboriginals running away from them. Rover Thomas is painted lying on the ground and wounded in the head by a horse while he was gathering cattle with Queenie, who saved his life.

Later, other artists also became very famous, like Mabel Juli, Shirley Purdie, Billy Joongoora Thomas, who testify to the vitality of the Warmun School, whose artists are also very inventive when it comes to ceremonies, as they create new rites to express the specificity of their religious universe. As Rover Thomas had done with the Kuril Kuril, another artist, Alan Jangala Griffiths, has imagined the Bali Bali, which has become a major theme in his own figurative painting.