Kuddtji Tjungarrayi







Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 10466
Size = 120 x 188 cm.
Acrylic on Linen


Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 9585
Size = 123 x 214 cm.
Acrylic on Linen




Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 9582
Size = 98 x 123 cm.
Acrylic on Linen


Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 9583
Size = 124 x 165 cm.
Acrylic on Linen


Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 9584
Size = 124 x 214 cm.
Acrylic on Linen




Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 10467
Size = 150 x 150 cm.
Acrylic on Linen


Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 1739
Size = 93 x 131 cm.
Acrylic on Linen


Kudditji
"My Country"
Cat No. 1738
Size = 91 x 132 cm.
Acrylic on Linen






Dob:		1930
Place:  	Alhalkere   Utopia  Station
Area:   	Utopia, Boundary Bore  
		NE of Alice Springs, Central Australia
Language:	Eastern  Anmatyerre 
Tribe:  	Utopia

Medium:	Acrylic paint on canvas


Group Exhibitions:
2003 	New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne 
2004: 	My Country, Japingka Gallery Perth 
2004: 	My Country, New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne 
2004:	Waterhole Aboriginal Art, Sofitel Wentworth Hotel Exhibition, Sydney.
2005: 	Colours in Country, Art Mob, Hobart, Tasmania 
2005: 	New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne 
2005: 	Waterhole Aboriginal Art, Danks Street, Sydney.


Details:
Kuddtji, born around 1928, is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal artists 
who began painting in the early eighties after the art  movement at Papunya 
was inspired by " Geoffrey Bardon. He is custodian of his country situated 
approximately 230 kms north east of Alice Springs. He is the brother of renowned
artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye from Utopia. Prior to his artistic career he 
had numerous jobs through out the Central Desert as a stockman and also worked 
in minera1 and gold mines. He has been represented in major international 
exhibitions and has gained world wide recognition for his traditional depictions
of his dreamings 

Dreamings, telling of the travels and law of the Emu ancestors. Starting in
1986, his precisely dotted Emu Dreaming paintings, featuring ranks of coloured 
roundels and other 'hieroglyphs' on a chequered or dotted background, became 
sought after by major galleries in the Northern Territory. Breaking out of this
style after some years, Kudditji's work became far looser and more 'abstract', 
and some commentators have seen a strong similarity with his sister Emily's work
 - but it is not clear who was the first to set out on this path. The demand for
his earlier, detailed style, however, moved Kudditji to return to it, and it 
was only in 2003 that he began to exhibit the extraordinary, saturated colour 
paintings that have seen his reputation grow nationally and internationally. 

The new paintings, in fact, have several styles, and Kudditji has explored size
of canvas as well as form in these intense, beautiful works. A sense of immense 
space can be felt in the "My Country" paintings, where massive blocks of 
stippled colour are laid alongside each other, sometimes using only two colours,
while in other paintings a quilt of juxtaposed colours produces a landscape effect.

Geoffrey Bardon, speaking of Papunya artists, writes that they "dreamed [their]
marvellous spirit-place back" so that "the land became a great song of the place
where a spirit could be in its own supernatural grace; the 'My Country' 
(Homeland) Dreamings were the painters' affirmation of both themselves and their
ancestors" (Papunya, p.54). Clearly, the same can be said of Kudditji Kngwarreye.









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