COLIN BIRD - ANCESTRAL SNAKE
COLIN BIRD
ANCESTRAL SNAKE, 1993
70 x 50 cm
synthetic polymer paint on paper
REGION
Utopia, NT
PROVENANCE
Austral Gallery, USA
Cooee Art Leven Gallery, NSW
The acrylic paintings on paper resulted from a project organised for Utopia artists by Rodney Gooch. Some thirty three paintings were made and collected by Rodney in a short period during 1993. The objective was to expand the creative challenges of the artists who had proved themselves to be highly skilled artists using the mediums of batik and canvas. Clearly, working with paper in the desert presented significant logistical challenges. The artists included Ada Bird Petyarre who contributed the largest number of works, June Bird, Paddy Bird, Eileen Bird, Colin Bird, Launa Purvis and Angelina Pwerle. Rodney described these as the first paintings on paper at Utopia.
STORY
Colin is from the Utopia region in Central Australia, a few hours from Alice Springs. His country is called Ilkawerne. Colin and his young family regularly move between Alice Springs and Utopia which is quite common for Aboriginal people, who regularly visit Alice Springs for shopping, socialising and cultural business. Although Colin is not a regular painter his artworks are strong and masculine, traditional of Aboriginal men from the area. He uses a traditional style with symbols to depict his Dreamings which include stories about the Ancestral Snake in the area. Colin is from the Jungala/Ngale skin group and he speaks Anmatyerre which is one of two language groups from the Utopia area.
ARTIST PROFILE
