Sep 23, 2023
Our booth was furnished by our neighbours at Anibou. If you missed us at the fair, a selection of works is still available, matched here with a few elegant pieces generously loaned to us by Anibou.
Konstantina (Kate Constantine)
Region: Gadi/Eora
Language: Gadigal
Tarra, 2023
acrylic on linen, 101 x 101 cm 20621
Provenance
Direct from artist, NSWCooee Art Leven, Sydney NSW
Story
As a saltwater woman, the place I feel most connected to on my Country is the water, specifically the Harbour. Arguably the place for me that has the most powerful engery is Tarra. Tarra is the point today known as Dawes Point, named for the gentle and kind Lieutenant Commander and Offical Astronomer in the First Fleet. He was stationed here for years, at what was considered, the outer most limit of occupation so that he could work through his telescopes without the obstruction of light from the camp. The young man befriended Patyegarang a young Gadigal woman with whom he had a close connection. It is because of this friendship that I today have been able to learn my traditional language which was long thought extinct! See Dawes and Patyegarang shared more than friendship, they shared language, and it is the small notebooks and journals that Dawes kept of this time that Professor Jaky Troy at USYD has been able breathe life back into our original Gadigal language. Visit Tarra, you will her energy and understand entirely.
Simon, Kitty Napanangka
Region: Lajamanu, NT
Language: Warlpiri
Mina Mina Jukurrpa (Mina Mina Dreaming) 2023
acrylic on linen, 85 x 50 cm
Provenance
Warnayaka Art, NT Cat No. 707-23 Cooee Art Leven, Sydney NSW
Story
Mina Mina is near Lake Mackay. It's main dreaming story is the karrpanu, the digging stick, famously recorded in the Kanakurlangu clan group dreaming songline. Warlpiri call that songline, yupunju. The women travelled eastward into Anmatyerre tribe lands in the Jukurrpa, by being, the sky and earth, night and day women created or gave birth to almost everything bringing them into existence. From raining clouds, waterholes, waterways, everything was danced and sung into existence. Then everything was left to be dug up with the karrpanu so one could feed on the knowledge about everything within the Warlpiri homelands. The ultimate karrpanu is the pointer stars near the Southern Cross stars. When the pointer star touches down in the horizon then the Warlpiri learning cycle begins again.
Thomas, Rover Joolama
Region: Kimberley, WA
Language: Kukatja
Untitled, 1993
natural earth pigments on canvas, 90 x 120 cm 20666
Provenance
Waringarri, Aboriginal Arts, WA Cat No. AP 3746 Private Collection, Vic Cooee Art Leven, Sydney NSW Accompanied by a faxed copy of the original certificate of authenticity
Story
Rover Thomas lived a traditional bush life with his family at Well 33 until he moved, at 10 years of age, with his family to Billiluna Station, where he was initiated, after his mother's death. After working for a period as a jackeroo on the Canning Stock Route he became a fencing contractor in Wyndham and later worked as a stockman in the Northern Territory and the fringes of the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts. In his later years, he settled and began painting in the Warmun community at Turkey Creek.While Rover's artworks can generally be characterised as map-like depictions of country executed with natural earth pigments in a graphic Kimberley style, they generally carry historic and social connotations.
Tomkins, Neil Ernest
Region: Sydney, NSW
Lajamanu Afternoon, 2023
oil on linen, 112 x 152 cm
Provenance
Artist's Studio, NSW
Cooee Art Leven, Sydney NSW
Story
"Alongside [Neil Tomkins' and Kitty Napanangka Simon'] distinctively bold and unapologetic use of colour, a major shared theme is the artists’ process of layering perception and memory, expressing their view of landscape as an act of recognition and blending."[...]In the crafting of his work, Tomkins uses memory in a similar way, folding it into the fabric of his works and creating a truer image of the artist’s perceived reality. A majority of works in this exhibition spawn from photo composites, fractured and instinctively arranged before being sewn together by brushstroke.The project was made up of three acts, beginning with a late June workshop at Warnayaka Arts in Lajamanu that led to Cooee Art Leven’s inaugural exhibition, country x Country, curated by Gadigal artist Konstantina. The project now concludes at Sydney Contemporary, with new works by Neil Ernest Tomkins, Kitty Napanangka Simon, and Konstantina. This final suite of works acts as a reflection on the project, with memory seeping into the fabric of the artists’ everyday, effecting an ongoing influence on perception as a whole.
