No Boundaries: Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting

Thu-Fri Sat–Sun

Noon–6:3O PM Noon–4:OO PM

Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting 2O June – 16 August 2O15

PICA at the MASON ERHMAN BLDG. ANNEX 467 NW Davis St., Portland OR

“These painters have gone far beyond the boundaries of their community, their ‘country,’ and the very idea of their work as merely ethnographic. They are simply painters— some of the finest abstract painters this planet has ever seen.”

— Dennis Scholl

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“I think you are meant to look at these paintings and be bowled away by their beauty, while also recognizing that they contain depths that will always remain beyond your understanding.”

— Henry Skerritt

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The Dreaming

For the artists in this exhibition, the Dreaming goes by different names: Tjukurrpa in the Western Desert; Ngarranggarni in the Kimberley; and Dirula in the North. The Dreaming incorporates ancestral beings, the creation of the universe, and the laws governing social and religious behavior. It also dictates connections to place that define individual Aboriginal identities. Dreaming tracks—often referred to as Songlines—trace the movements of the ancestral beings from one place to another, which means that the identity of every place and people is understood in relation to adjacent places and people. The entire country is thereby connected in an endless network.

Like the prehistoric rock art and sacred or ceremonial objects that preceded them, the paintings in No Boundaries are rooted in ancient Aboriginal cosmology. The non-representational style provides a “common ground” through which the artists are able to communicate spatial information. By moving into the realm of abstraction, the artists shifted the emphasis from communicating the specifics of the Dreaming, towards communicating broad impressions. The non-representational style is designed to keep secret and sacred elements hidden, while allowing uninitiated viewers to “feel” the power of the Dreaming.

A number of paintings in No Boundaries have been displayed on a horizontal plane rather than on the wall as one might expect. This is intended to highlight the landscape-like and sculptural qualities of the paintings. Looking “across” the canvases, one sees peaks and valleys, which appear more like physical renderings of cartography.

The Dreaming encodes the location of essential waterholes and food sources into stories, dances, and songs. Some scholars have called it the most sophisticated non-technological system of knowledge in the world. The Dreaming and the paintings arising from it are thus both a belief system and a geographical fact.

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Artist Biographies

PADDY BEDFORD GIJA LANGUAGE. BORN c.1922. DIED 2OO7.

Celebrated as one of Australia’s most important artists, Paddy Bedford was also a Lawman of the greatest authority amongst his Gija people. Bedford was born c. 1922 in the remote and majestic country of Bedford Downs Station in the East Kimberley region of northwestern Australia. It was from the station that he gained his surname, his first name coming from the severe Australian Station Master, Paddy Quilty, the man believed responsible for the massacre of a group of Bedford’s kin a few years earlier. This undercurrent of colonial violence was ever present in Bedford’s work. Along with artist Timmy Timms, he was integral to the development of the landmark exhibition Blood on the Spinifex, held at the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne in 2OO2. The exhibition brought the memory of station massacres into disquieting view, and propelled Bedford’s work to national acclaim. Bedford spent much of his life working as a stockman, or ranch hand, before starting to paint in 1998 when he was in his late seventies. His earliest works conformed closely to the East Kimberley style pioneered by Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji in the early 198Os. Bedford quickly mastered the style, fashioning his own distinctive blend of austerity, meandering line and stark color combinations. Bedford introduced a new expressionism to East Kimberley painting. In 2OO6, he was the subject of a major touring retrospective organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. His works are held in most major collections in Australia, as well as important collections in Europe and American. In 2OO4, he was one of eight artists invited to create designs to adorn the Muse’e du quai Branly in Paris.

JANANGGOO BUTCHER CHEREL GOONIYANDI/GIJA LANGUAGES. BORN c.1918. DIED 2OO9.

Jananggoo Butcher Cherel’s career was defined by restless innovation. Cherel was born around 192O at Jalnganjoowa, near the homestead at Fossil Downs Station. His mother was Gija, his father Gooninyandi. Like many Indigenous people, Cherel was a polyglot, speaking his parents’ tongues, as well as Walmajarri and Bunuba. Working for most of his life as a cowboy, Cherel began painting regularly in the early 199Os, following the establishment of the Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency in Fitzroy Crossing. As one of the most senior elders of the Gooniyandi, he was instrumental in the revival of ceremony at the Muludja community where he spent his final years. Cherel was passionate about traditional culture and law, but he was also a committed and reflexive artist, challenging himself to find new ways to express his heritage and experiences in pictorial form. A master of turning complex designs into coherent visual statements, Cherel’s attention to detail can be seen through delicately detailed recurring elements, such as bush plums (girndi), which work in concert to create exquisite tapestries of motion. In Cherel’s hand, these graphically idiosyncratic experiments in color and form become the sublime device for combining deep cultural knowledge with astute observation of the natural world. In 2OO5, he was declared a Living Treasure by the Western Australian State Government, and in he 2OO6 he was selected as a finalist in the prestigious Clemenger Contemporary Art Award at the National

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Gallery of Victoria. His works are held in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, along with numerous important collections in Australia and the U.S.

PRINCE OF WALES (MIDPUL)

LARRAKIA LANGUAGE. BORN 1938. DIED 2OO2.

Known as Midpul to his Larrakia kin, there is some debate as to how Prince of Wales acquired his royal epithet. Some suggest it was because he danced for Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Darwin in 1963. More likely is that it was because he was the son of King George (Imabul) and grandson of King Miranda, the recognized leader of the Larrakia at the time of the British arrival in Darwin. Midpul never ascended to King because by the time he became leader of the Larrakia, the patronizing colonial practice of “crowning” Indigenous leaders had been eliminated. Irrespective, Midpul was a proud and important leader of his people. In 1971, he and his brothers mounted a public protest to have parts of Darwin declared a Larrakia reserve, and later he was actively involved in the successful Kenbi Land Claim. Despite suffering a stroke that paralyzed most of his left side, Midpul began painting in 1995, drawing his inspiration from the body markings used in ceremonial rituals. Although the Larrakia had a long artistic tradition, Midpul was the first artist to seek a sustained engagement with the contemporary art world. Without any template to work from, he produced works of singular poetry and grace; restrained yet visceral; tremulous yet compellingly assured. Compared to the tight-knit dot- paintings of the Central desert, Midpul’s paintings were a revelation. Across stark, unmodulated grounds, his marks hover like ghostly fingerprints. Haptically direct, these marks offer a stark evocation of the body in movement, creating a haunting metaphor for the memory ancient rituals burnished into the ether of time. In 2OO1, Midpul was awarded the general painting prize at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. His works are held in most state collections in Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the National Gallery of Victoria.

TOMMY MITCHELL NGAANYATJARRA LANGUAGE. BORN c.1943. DIED 2O13.

Tommy Mitchell’s painting career was short but bright. From the moment he began painting in 2OO5, his skill as a colorist was evident to all, catapulting him to instant acclaim. From the onset, his paintings revealed a remarkable sophistication, confidence and grace. Born around 1943 near Papulankutja in the Gibson Desert, Mitchell’s early style was influenced by his family members Arthur Tjatitjarra Robertson and Tjunka Lewis. Mitchell quickly found his own voice, drawing upon his intimate experience of Ngaanyatjarra country, which he traversed on foot as a child. These recollections are transformed into glowing fields of overlapping dots, which Mitchell alternately groups into patchwork grids or cascading fountainesques.

An important lawman, Mitchell was a central figure at the Warakurna Art Centre. As the art of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands rose to prominence, Mitchell was quickly recognized as one of the region’s most unique talents. His work was displayed prominently in the exhibitions Desert

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Country (Art Gallery of South Australia, 2O1O) Living Water: Art of the Far Western Desert (National Gallery of Victoria, 2O11), Purnu, Tjanpi, Canvas: Art of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands (Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University of Western Australia in 2O12) and Ancestral Modern (Seattle Art Museum, 2O12). In 2OO9, he was selected as a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

His works are held in many major collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

NGARRA ANDAYIN /GIJA LANGUAGE. BORN c.192O. DIED 2OO8.

Ngarra was the quintessential outsider. To his peers, he was a figure of singular importance, whose knowledge of culture, law and mythology were unparalleled. To those intimate with his art, he was one of the great visionaries of recent times. In the last 14 years of his life, he had a distinguished career as an artist. He exhibited widely throughout Australia and overseas, his works were acquired by numerous public collections and he was a five-time finalist in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. And yet, he remained something of an unheralded master in his lifetime. It is only now that the magnitude of his artistic legacy is finally coming into view. Ngarra was born in 192O on Glenroy Station in the west Kimberley. As a young orphan, he ran away from the station to join his grandparents Muebyne and Larlgarbyne. These old men had not reconciled with the pastoral industry; speaking Andayin and Gija, they lived traditionally in the Mornington Range, upholding their customs, laws and ceremonies. The education they provided set Ngarra apart from his contemporaries, most of whom were living on the cattle stations, and made him one of the most important ceremonial leaders of his generation. In 1994, Ngarra started painting, first with natural ochres, before shifting to acrylic paints when old age and infirmity made collecting and grinding ochre physically impossible. He shone as a master colorist, mixing his own palette to stunning effect. Ngarra’s paintings are a vast repository of ancient knowledge, but they are equally defined by their visual inventiveness, humor and wit. His privileged cultural position meant that he felt free to innovate and adapt his imagery for visual or allegorical effect. Working in isolation, he experimented at an extraordinary pace. He was prepared to work across numerous subjects: from designs embedded in deep, spiritual content, to whimsical images of station life. In 2OOO, Ngarra was given a survey exhibition at the Western Australian Museum. His works are held in numerous public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Museum Victoria.

BILLY JOONGOORA THOMAS WANGKATJUNGA LANGUAGE. BORN c.192O. DIED 2O12.

Billy Joongoora Thomas witnessed the imposition of the pastoral industry onto the traditional lifestyle of his Wangkatjunga people.

Born around 192O in the bush, south of Billiluna Station in the Great

9 Sandy Desert of Northern Western Australia, he recalled his first encounter with Europeans, when still a small child, a stockman approached him offering food. As cattle stations encroached on their ancestral estates, Thomas and his peers were indentured into the pastoral industry. Thomas prospered as a stockman, leading cattle along the newly minted Canning Stock Route. Later, he became a police tracker, a dangerous occupation that saw him shot in the leg during an exchange between police and a fugitive. While a stockman, Thomas worked alongside Rover Thomas, the great progenitor of East Kimberley painting in the 198Os. But it was not until 1995 that Billy Thomas presented himself to the Waringarri Aboriginal Arts center in Kununurra with the desire to start painting.

Working in thick, impasto skeins of ochre, Thomas’ works married the austerity of East Kimberley painting, with the vibrant, winding networks of desert art. He embraced the materiality of his medium, producing thickly encrusted paintings that presented the physical reality of his country while alluding to its spiritual underpinnings.

At their most poetic, the substance of the earth is left to speak for itself: blinding fields of white ochre, forcing the viewer to strain at the frontier of perspicacity to apprehend the subtle variations of a country coming into being. This is the poiesis of Dreaming, forming all things out of the shapeless void. Billy Thomas was a finalist in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards every year from 1996–2OOO. His works are represented in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2O12, he was included in the exhibition Ancestral Modern at the Seattle Art Museum.

BOXER MILNER TJAMPITJIN JARU LANGUAGE. BORN c.1935. DIED 2OO9.

Like many of the senior men and women at Wirrimanu (Balgo), Boxer Milner began painting in the late 198Os, following the establishment of the Warlayirti art centre. His early works were tentative experiments in form. But buried within their restrained palette and restricted formal syntax were the early signs of a matchless mastery of geometry and form. It was not until the mid-199Os, when the artist began tempering these rigid structures with high-keyed color contrasts that the singularity of his talent became unmistakable.

In his mature works, Milner revealed himself to be that rare breed of artist adroit at perfectly manipulating both color and form. This balance was the evidence of a lifetime’s observation of the natural world. Milner was born around 1935 at Matwanangu, on the banks of Sturt Creek, south west of Bililuna in Western Australia. Working as a stockman, his life was defined by majestic natural cycles of this ancient country. A senior lawman, he drew his artistic and spiritual sustenance from Purkitji, a major floodplain for the Sturt. It is the ebb and flow of these life-giving waters that shape the idiosyncratic iconography of Milner’s work. In his jostling angles, or flowering ringlets, Milner offers the hieroglyphs of nature’s transformational hand. Rendered in a measured architecture of lines and dots, they are the astute record of an intimate knowledge of place. Milner’s work was included in the exhibitions Images of Power: Aboriginal Art of the Kimberly and Color Power: Aboriginal Art Post 1984 at the National Gallery of Victoria. He is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

WARLIMPIRRNGA TJAPALTJARRI PINTUPI LANGUAGE. BORN c.1958.

In 1984, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri walked out of the desert and into the contemporary art world. Born around 1958, on a hillside near Lake Mackay, he lived nomadically with his family in the remote western

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desert. It was not until 1984 that his family first came into contact with the outside world, making international headlines as the “Lost Tribe” of the Pintupi. Three years later, after settling at the community of Kiwirrkurra, he approached Daphne Williams of the community arts center Papunya Tula Artists, with his desire to paint. Under the tuition of established artists in the community, he completed his first painting in April 1987. His first 11 works were exhibited in Melbourne at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 1988, the entire group being acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria. Despite his relative youth, Warlimpirrnga’s upbringing made him a formidable repository of ancient knowledge; he quickly assumed a position of authority within the Pintupi, admired for his prodigious knowledge of healing, law and ceremony. Steeped in the arcane mythology of the Tingari ancestors, Warlimpirrnga was part of a small group of artists that pioneered the stark, linear style that has become synonymous with Pintupi painting at Kiwirrkura. Swirling lines of dots create a pulsating field of optical intensity. Shimmering like a mirage, they evoke the shifting movement of desert sands, while hovering between the canvas and the eye in a powerful metaphor for the energy fields of the Dreaming that run through all things. Warlimpirrnga is represented in most major collections in Australia, including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales and National Gallery of Victoria. In 2OO8 he was featured in the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, and in 2O12 he was included in dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel, Germany.

TJUMPO TJAPANANGKA KUKATJA LANGUAGE. BORN c.1929. DIED 2OO7.

Radiating tension animates the paintings of Tjumpo Tjapanangka.

Simultaneously ebullient and restrained, they pulse with lively energy, while evoking the sober austerity of Indigenous law. Tjumpo was born at Kanapir, between the great art centers of Wirrimanu (Balgo) and Kiwirrkura in remote Western Australia. His work bears some hallmarks of both artistic schools, but remains defiantly individual.

Tjumpo was part of the great Kukatja exodus, leaving the Gibson Desert to live at the Balgo Hills Mission in the late 194Os. A freak drought and the ruinous ecological effects of the pastoral incursion had made nomadic life increasingly tenuous. At Balgo, the Kukatja and Walmajarri lived in exile, maintaining their traditions while adapting to mission life. In 1986, the Warlayirti art centre was established, providing the outlet for an artistic renaissance. While many of the artists at Warlayirti pioneered a style of unrestrained vigor, utilizing a high-keyed palette and chaotic arrangement of forms, Tjumpo used a limited palette to create highly structured works that reveal their energy in throbbing waves. The seriousness of these works is indicative of Tjumpo’s high social status: a senior lawman and ritual healer (maparn), these works capture the power of the landscape that only such “clever men” are able to access. Tjumpo Tjapanangka is represented in most important Australian collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

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Acknowledgements

No Boundaries: Aboriginal Contemporary Abstract Painting originated at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada and was organized by William Fox, Director, Center for Art and Environment, and scholar Henry Skerritt. The exhibition is drawn from the collection of Debra and Dennis Scholl.

PICA VISUAL ART CURATOR Kristan Kennedy HEAD PREPARATOR Spencer Byrne-Seres PREPARATOR Morgan Ritter LIGHTING Bill Boese, Morning Becomes Electric COLLATERAL DESIGN Sean Schumacher CREW Owen Hutchinson Micah Schmelzer Evan Humphreys Daniel Granias EXHIBITION SPONSORS Sarah Miller-Meigs And Andrew Meigs The Robert Lehman Foundation The Jackson Foundation Beam Development Domaine Drouhin Cloudline Argyle PICA’s visual art programs are supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Calligram Foundation/Allie Furlotti, PICA’s Visual Art Circle, and in part by a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

SPECIAL THANKS This exhibition would not be possible without the vision and generosity of Debra and Dennis Scholl; Henry Skerritt; Esther Park; Jonathan Malsen; Leonard Barrett; Liz Calderon; Jeanine Jablonski; Sarah Meigs; PICA’s Staff: Victoria Frey, Angela Mattox, Erin Boberg Doughton, Roya Amirsolymani, Beth Hutchins, Sarah Yusavitz, Erika Osurman, Van Pham, Noelle Stiles, Rozalyn Crews; PICA’s volunteers; PICA’s current, past and founding board members; and PICA’s founder, Kristy Edmunds.

No Boundaries showcases the work of nine Aboriginal artists from remote northwest Australia. During their lifetimes, these men were revered as community leaders and the custodians of ceremonial knowledge. They took up painting late in their lives, but quickly established themselves at the forefront of Australian contemporary art. This exhibition offers a snapshot from a dynamic period of experimentation, as artists helped to shift Aboriginal art from picturing sacred knowledge to painting in non-representational styles.

Aboriginal Australians have made art for tens of thousands of years, starting with rock art that may be as old as 5O,OOO years. The paintings included in this exhibition share a common inheritance with body painting as well as painted sacred and ceremonial objects including boards, shields, stones, and objects of religious significance. In the 193Os, artists depicted desert landscapes in a realistic western pictorial manner. But by 1971, acrylic “dot paintings� arose in Central Australia as a style used to transmit traditional knowledge to non-Aboriginal people. For the first time, Aboriginal Australian artists were revealing designs that had traditionally been held in the utmost secrecy.

Our contemporary age is defined by globalization driven not only by the market, but also by displacement, diaspora, the movement of refugees, colonialism, and decolonization. This has thrown different cultures and worldviews into unprecedented contact and tension.

Shaping these differences into meaningful connections has become one of the defining tenets of contemporary artists everywhere.

It is the ability of these nine Aboriginal artists to speak across cultural boundaries while maintaining their distinctive identities that places them at the vanguard of global contemporary art practice.

This exhibition is drawn from the collection of Miami-based collectors Debra and Dennis Scholl.

PORTLAND INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART 415 SW 1Oth Ave. (Suite 3OO) Portland OR 972O5

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