Women's Story, 1995

synthetic polymer paint on linen

141.5 x 202.5 cm

Price on application — enquire

Provenance: Ngintaka Arts, Alice Springs, NT Private Collection Vic Art Mob, Hobart, Tas, Cat No. AM 22797/24 Private Collection Tas
Artwork story: Maggie Watson created paintings for 15 years but was never a prolific artist. She began painting at 60 years of age and became the senior female artist at Yuendumu, by the time of her death in 2004. Foremost amongst the major themes depicted by Maggie, Dorothy Napangardi Robertson and other female Yuendumu artists is the epic narrative tale of the Karntakurlangu. The hair string belts they made to carry their babies and possessions, and the magical emergence of digging sticks out of the ground at Mina Mina, equipping them for their vast travels, is superbly illustrated in this work. Maggie Watson's paintings are characterised by the linear precision created by dots applied in alternating bands of colour. When viewed in varying arrays across the canvas these meticulously applied textured striations impart a rhythmic trance-like quality thereby evoking the movement of lines of women as they dance and their repeated chanting during ceremony.

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c.1925 – 2004

synthetic polymer paint on linen

141.5 x 202.5 cm

Price on application — enquire

Provenance: Ngintaka Arts, Alice Springs, NT Private Collection Vic Art Mob, Hobart, Tas, Cat No. AM 22797/24 Private Collection Tas
Artwork story: Maggie Watson created paintings for 15 years but was never a prolific artist. She began painting at 60 years of age and became the senior female artist at Yuendumu, by the time of her death in 2004. Foremost amongst the major themes depicted by Maggie, Dorothy Napangardi Robertson and other female Yuendumu artists is the epic narrative tale of the Karntakurlangu. The hair string belts they made to carry their babies and possessions, and the magical emergence of digging sticks out of the ground at Mina Mina, equipping them for their vast travels, is superbly illustrated in this work. Maggie Watson's paintings are characterised by the linear precision created by dots applied in alternating bands of colour. When viewed in varying arrays across the canvas these meticulously applied textured striations impart a rhythmic trance-like quality thereby evoking the movement of lines of women as they dance and their repeated chanting during ceremony.