Paintings by indigenous artists from Yuendumu in Australia’s Central Desert
Works on this page are on display at the Bainbridge Public Library through November 2024
Jeffrey Moose Gallery is proud to announce our annual exhibition of paintings by indigenous artists from Yuendumu in Australia’s Central Desert. The show opens First Friday, August 2nd from 6-8 PM. A Facebook livestream will run from about 5:20-5:40. The exhibit runs through September. A second reception will be held on First Friday, September 6th from 6 to 8 PM. Jeffrey Moose will deliver a short talk at 7 PM that evening.
Every August, The Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair draws thousands from around the world. Last year’s fair features more than 1500 artists represented by 76 art centers throughout the country. Few communities are more important to the genre: Papunya, Yuendumu and Utopia led the way. 2021 was the 50th Anniversary of the first Dot Paintings. Traditional ground paintings by the Yuendumu artists, known as Warlukurlangu (Home of the Fire Dreaming) made history in Paris in 1989, part of the international survey, “Magiciennes De La Terre.” At this sensational exhibit of Indigenous art from around the world, a group of men from Yuendumu packed huge amounts of desert earth and crushed flowers from home, shaping the material into an enormous “Ground Painting” to honor the Yarla Jukurrpa, a creation story about the bush potato.
Steven Jupurrula Nelson from Yuendumu is a finalist in this year’s TELSTRA Awards and Julie Nangala Robertson won top prize for painting in last year’s contest. Several works by Yeundumu Artists are on display in The Seattle Art Museum’s third floor galleries. It was through the Kaplan/Levy Collection shown at SAM that Jeffrey Moose was connected to this remote desert art co-op. In 2004, Jeffrey and his father and son visited Yuendumu, establishing a longstanding and fruitful relationship.
Dot paintings are images rendered from an aerial perspective that use symbols to represent people, animals, plants, weather systems and other forms to tell ancient creation stories. In their original form, these stories are part of the Song Lines, complex sets of story-poems recited in rhythmic patterns that link sacred places across the Australian continent.
