My Mother's Country, 2007

synthetic polymer paint on linen

120 x 240 cm

Est. $8,000 – $12,000

Hammer $8,000

Provenance: Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. MB033214 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by certificate of authenticity from Mbantua Gallery
Artwork story: In the 1970s Weir became a central figure in the Utopia Homelands movement and was appointed the first female president of the Urapunta Council. Her work is held by the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Awelye is the women's ceremonial body paint design of the Anmatyerre and Alyawarr peoples, a living knowledge passed through the female line. The Mbantua Gallery documentation for this work records that Weir embedded within the surface the symbols of abandoned campsites from her mother's country, Awelye designs and spiritual figures, then overlaid them with complex dot work that submerges those images into the painting. The surface layer represents the bush tucker found across the land: bush yam, potato, berry, plum, banana and grass seed. The seeds of that last are cleaned and ground into paste to form a bush damper. The effect, across a canvas nearly two and a half metres long, is of a landscape seen simultaneously from above and from within: forms emerging and retreating beneath the dense dotting as the eye moves across the surface. The photograph accompanying this lot shows Weir holding the completed work at Mbantua Gallery in Alice Springs.

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Sale 3 · Lot 74

c.1945 – 2023

synthetic polymer paint on linen

120 x 240 cm

Est. $8,000 – $12,000

Hammer $8,000

Provenance: Mbantua Gallery, Alice Springs, NT, Cat No. MB033214 Private Collection, NSW Accompanied by certificate of authenticity from Mbantua Gallery
Artwork story: In the 1970s Weir became a central figure in the Utopia Homelands movement and was appointed the first female president of the Urapunta Council. Her work is held by the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Awelye is the women's ceremonial body paint design of the Anmatyerre and Alyawarr peoples, a living knowledge passed through the female line. The Mbantua Gallery documentation for this work records that Weir embedded within the surface the symbols of abandoned campsites from her mother's country, Awelye designs and spiritual figures, then overlaid them with complex dot work that submerges those images into the painting. The surface layer represents the bush tucker found across the land: bush yam, potato, berry, plum, banana and grass seed. The seeds of that last are cleaned and ground into paste to form a bush damper. The effect, across a canvas nearly two and a half metres long, is of a landscape seen simultaneously from above and from within: forms emerging and retreating beneath the dense dotting as the eye moves across the surface. The photograph accompanying this lot shows Weir holding the completed work at Mbantua Gallery in Alice Springs.