My Country, 1995

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

79 x 84 cm; 85 x 90 cm (framed)

Est. $30,000 – $40,000

Provenance: Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic, Cat No. AGOD5211 Private Collection, acquired from the above Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, and a photograph of the artist with the work at Utopia
Artwork story: Among the most compelling aspects of this work's provenance is a photograph of Kngwarraye seated on the red earth at Utopia with this canvas laid out before her — documentary evidence of a kind rarely available for works of this period, placing the painting unambiguously in the hands and Country of its maker. This smaller My Country is distinct from the large linen work of the same title and year also in this sale, the two canvases approaching the same declaration from entirely different formal positions. Across this intimate square canvas, dense crescent and ring forms accumulate in teal, grey-white, ochre, and warm rust, the marks overlapping and interpenetrating until the surface achieves the saturated, breathing depth that characterises her finest work from this phase. The underlying ground, glimpsed between marks in flashes of blue and burnt orange, gives the composition a luminous interior, as though lit from beneath. This is her dump-dump technique at its most physically exuberant, the brush pounded directly into the canvas to build successive layers of interlocking pigment. The title is among the most direct in Kngwarraye's lexicon: an unmediated declaration of custodianship and Dreaming obligation. Where many titles name specific sites or ceremonies, this one names the relationship itself. It is, as she always said, whole lot.

Catalogues198 of 257

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Sale 3 · Lot 50

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

c.1910 – 1996

Region: Eastern Desert
Community: Utopia
Language group: Anmatyerr (Anmatyerre)

My Country, 1995

synthetic polymer paint on canvas

79 x 84 cm; 85 x 90 cm (framed)

Est. $30,000 – $40,000

Provenance: Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Vic, Cat No. AGOD5211 Private Collection, acquired from the above Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, and a photograph of the artist with the work at Utopia
Artwork story: Among the most compelling aspects of this work's provenance is a photograph of Kngwarraye seated on the red earth at Utopia with this canvas laid out before her — documentary evidence of a kind rarely available for works of this period, placing the painting unambiguously in the hands and Country of its maker. This smaller My Country is distinct from the large linen work of the same title and year also in this sale, the two canvases approaching the same declaration from entirely different formal positions. Across this intimate square canvas, dense crescent and ring forms accumulate in teal, grey-white, ochre, and warm rust, the marks overlapping and interpenetrating until the surface achieves the saturated, breathing depth that characterises her finest work from this phase. The underlying ground, glimpsed between marks in flashes of blue and burnt orange, gives the composition a luminous interior, as though lit from beneath. This is her dump-dump technique at its most physically exuberant, the brush pounded directly into the canvas to build successive layers of interlocking pigment. The title is among the most direct in Kngwarraye's lexicon: an unmediated declaration of custodianship and Dreaming obligation. Where many titles name specific sites or ceremonies, this one names the relationship itself. It is, as she always said, whole lot.