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ColeRober Robert Ambrose Cole Robert Ambrose Cole 1959 - 1994 Robert Ambrose Cole is best known for having created of a distinct personal niche between traditional and contemporary Indigenous art styles through his experimentation with ‘dotting’ techniques. While growing up in urban Mparntwe (Alice Springs), he encountered a variety of influences. The tradition-based art movements emerging from the Central and Western Deserts inspired him, as did the European-influenced landscapes of the Hermannsburg watercolourists. Due in part to his own ancestral heritage, both provided fertile areas of artistic exploration, but it was in their eventual synthesis that Cole’s art reached its ultimate aesthetic realization. Cole himself was an unassuming man who approached his art with great caring and sincerity and was reluctant to explain his imagery. Yet despite the decidedly spiritual or contemplative feel across his entire oeuvre, art patrons, curators and critics often made profound statements when commenting on his works. Though his style varied, many of his more recongisable works were inhabited by a particular kind of meticulous and evenly laid white dotting. This is the one constant in a body of work spanning the six years prior to 1994, the year of the artist’s death. He began painting in 1988, at the age of twenty-nine and worked at the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association. CAAMA brought him into contact with artists from the Utopia region, a people with whom he shared an ancestral heritage through paternal ties. Cole’s personal interpretation of the Utopia method led him to fuse this style with a European figurative influence. Although his work remained predominantly conceptual, the tension between the figurative and the abstract was a continuing theme throughout his work. The technique of wash and overlay, prompted Cole to experiment with delicate and sensitive blends of colour and tonal relationships, often generating a glowing otherworldly patina across the surface. In other works however, he built a stronger surface texture. Areas of dots emphasized the substantiality of simple forms within an expansive and highly charged field. The ambiguity between distinct structure and dissolving boundaries found its fullest expression in the works painted just prior to his untimely death through illness at the age of thirty five. Coles earliest works took up the imagery of sites and symbols attached to the country and people of his parents; the Warramunga people of Banka Banka, north of Tennant Creek on his mother’s side and Aputula, Finke, the sandstone hills on the edge of the Simpson Desert, on his fathers side. Yet Cole was removed from conventional narratives of Aboriginal art, partly by his conscious abstraction and also by his reluctance to explain his imagery. Perhaps he wanted to avoid being fetishized as a painter of spiritualised forms. For instance, the sense of an aerial view, a perspective that occurred throughout his work, was not explained as a land narrative. And, though it was grounded in traditional Aboriginal culture, Cole appears to have been most concerned with his own personal painterly exploration of colour and form. His dots were always carefully measured, spaced, and applied with attention to varying sizes and areas. While the creation of a surface vibration by varying dot size and spacing is part of a continuing aspect of Aboriginal painting, Cole strove for a precision that differentiated his work from other artists working in the same vein. Figures and shapes below the surface were contained and defined by the overlaid dots to give the effect of a shimmering, mirage –like illusion (not dissimilar to that of op art). The ebb and flow of indistinct shapes were accompanied by the constant assertion of their presence. Cole’s work was best defined within this schema. In Two Spirits 1991, we can make out the form of two figures, defined by two distinct fields of dots. A third layer of paint is drizzled (Pollock-like), across the canvas, adding an element of chaos to the meticulously laid background. In describing his work, Margo Neale wrote ‘…the spiritual fervour or contemplative state that accompanies the act of creating is an act of homage which also makes them religious icons' (1994: 95). Robert Ambrose Cole painted for only a brief period and was principally promoted through Christopher Hodges’ Utopia Art Gallery in Sydney and galleries that he worked with including Mary Reid Brunstrom’s Austral Gallery in St. Louis, U.S.A. Cole only lived long enough to have two exhibitions yet within the brief span of his career his work was included in a number of important art awards; was issued on a stamp by Australia Post, and most importantly, included in Australian Perspecta at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1993. His paintings were generally small and created on either paper or canvas as was the case with his highest priced work, which measured just 69.6 x 50 cm and sold for $11,162 when estimated at $6,000-8,000 by Christie's in August 2000 (Lot 8). This was one of five works by Cole sold through Christie's which have generated $31,134 since his work first appeared in salerooms in 2000. Only two other auction houses have presented his paintings. Sotheby’s have sold just one for $575 the year his work first appeared at auction in 1999. Since that time Christies and Lawson~Menzies have championed Cole’s work. The latter have sold seven pieces for a total of $29,040 including six of his ten highest results on the secondary market to date. Another work sold by Christies in 2000 had been included in the landmark exhibition Spirit and Place: Art in Australia 1861-1996, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 1996-1997. Measuring just 79 x 59.5 cm and painted in 1992, this untitled work sold for $7,475 against a presale estimate of $4,000-6,000. It was no finer in quality two excellent works on paper that both failed to sell in 2008 at Leonard Joel, despite extremely reasonable estimates. A missed opportunity had a discriminating collector picked them up and re-offered them through an auction house more familiar with the artist’s work. Despite the failures above, that resulted in his success rate dropping from 81% to 72% Cole’s clearance is still impressive. Most of those works that have failed to sell have been screenprints carrying overly high estimates. While his best year at auction was 2000 when both his highest and fourth priced paintings sold at Christies, his most prolific years in the salesrooms have been 2005-2006 during which five of six paintings offered sold for a total of $30,200. His works are highly desirable and eminently affordable at an average price of just $4,673. Collectors would be wise to keep an eye out for any that come up for sale. With estimates running in the $8,000-10,000 range these works certainly seem to represent very good value given their rarity. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - UNTITLED ( BUSH RAISIN MAN) Price AU$3,000.00 ALISON (JOJO) PURUNTATAMERI - WINGA (TIDAL MOVEMENT/WAVES) Out of stock LILY YIRDINGALI JURRAH HARGRAVES NUNGARRAYI - KURLURRNGALINYPA JUKURRPA Price From AU$13,500.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Out of stock JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

Artist Profile for Richard Bell < Back Richard Bell Richard Bell ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE RICHARD BELL - A WHITE HERO FOR BLACK AUSTRALIA Sold AU$0.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Richard Bell ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

MungGeorg George Mung Mung George Mung Mung 1921 - 1991 Lilmayading, Lirrmayirriny George Mung Mung spent his life in the East Kimberley cattle industry until he finally settled, in his fifties, where he was originally born and spent his earliest years. His father, Charlie Mungmung, had worked as a police tracker stationed at Turkey Creek at the time of his birth and George began work in the stock camps while still a boy. He was employed by the manager of the Tickelera Cattle Station, Authur Muggleton, and became a drover. As a youth he travelled across the country as far as Queensland with up to 1,200 head of cattle. Later, when the new owner of Tickelara, Bill Scurthrope, sold up and moved to Spring Creek, George, now married to Betty Carrington, joined him and had a family. More than a decade later they returned to the East Kimberley to work with Jimmy Kline, the manager of Texas Downs Station where George became head stockman, and when Kline moved to Turkey Creek, George followed. He later spent four years breaking horses for Tom Davis at Lissadell Station before relocating his family to Wyndham, where his children could attend school. However, with the establishment of the Warmun Community in the mid seventies George once again returned to live at Warmun with his family. The Pastoral Award of 1969, which gave equal pay to Indigenous workers, had all but ended the lifestyle of the Aboriginal stockmen. They found themselves thrown off stations, homeless and unemployed. In its wake, Warmun provided both a shelter and, coincidentally, a site for cultural and artistic revival. This was given extra impetus when George and a number of his contemporaries, including Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji, were convinced that the devastation Cyclone Tracy wreaked on Darwin in 1974, was the manifestation of the Rainbow Serpent’s anger at the abandonment of traditional culture in the face of white influence. In a dream Rover Thomas was visited by the spirit of a female relative who had recently died in a car crash, and over the following year this dream became the basis of a song cycle during which the singers revisited all of the most important East Kimberley Dreaming sites. By 1978 this had developed into the Krill Krill Ceremony during which the woman’s spirit travels from the moment of her death in a medical airplane hovering over a whirlpool, to her conception site near Turkey Creek and on throughout the Kimberley to eventually end near Cape Levique as she overlooks the destruction of Darwin. From the outset, George Mung Mung aided the central figures of this invention, Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji, in creating the ceremonial boards for the dancers to carry in this reenactment. His own artistic development was significantly influenced by these early origins in both manner and concept. Unlike the large ephemeral ground paintings of the Western Desert with their omnipotent viewpoint, these paintings on plywood boards invited a range of different perspectives. George’s art comprised works that incorporated both aerial and lateral depictions of country simultaneously, as well as figurative profiles of ancestral animals and occasional descriptive annotation. In George Mung Mung’s works, and specifically his earliest paintings on board, naturalistic figurative representations are far more prolific than in Western Desert works, no doubt derived from the Warmun painters tendency to depict the features of the environment created by the ancestors, rather than mapping the journey of ancestral travels, as in desert painting. Initially George’s paintings differed greatly from those of his contemporaries. While Rover’s sparse canvases demonstrated a ‘simplicity that suggested there was far more to each work than met the eye' (McDonald 2004: 21), George Mung Mung’s works were characterized by more complex composition combined with greater figuration. Later he tended toward works that were far bolder and geometric, executed in a far darker palette. In these works he always portrayed the country, which in his final years he would go and visit with his wife, children and grandchildren. A favorite camping spot was Cattle Creek, where they would sit under the tree that stood just ten meters from where Betty was born and where they had married. With his family around them they would relate stories around the camp fire that would connect them all to their country. George suddenly died in 1991, just as Rover’s work was being presented at the Venice Biennale and Kimberley paintings were beginning to make a major impact on the Aboriginal art market. George Mung Mung was amongst the initial instigators of the art movement at Warmun in the East Kimberley and as a result his works have been included in major art collections around Australia including the Holmes a Court Collection and the Berndt Museum of Anthropology. His inclusion in the latter gives insight into the anthropological value of many of his works and also explains the stellar result of $29,900 that was achieved for one of his finest works as early as 1999. The painting, Texas Country 1985, sold for almost three times its estimated $8,000-12,000. It was a remarkable work combining diverse elements such as a beautifully rendered crocodile and bird, and perspectives of distant hills, with spectacular coherency. The record price was undoubtedly deserved, both for its historical significance and its aesthetic beauty. However it was a precedent that seemed difficult to match, and the record stood until 2007, a year in which three paintings entered the artist’s top ten results. His new record-breaking work had all of the qualities of the former record holder and sold for $34,000, a tad below the high estimate placed on it in Sotheby’s July sale (Lot 120). Along with this result, Frog Hollow near Turkey Creek, an undated painting with Waringarri Aboriginal Art provenance, sold for $24,000 at Sotheby’s in November (Lot 44). It was a typically animated rendition of the landscape in which Mung Mung depicted elements in both lateral and aerial perspective. The arabesques of flowing water at the top of the painting graphically imitated the undulating hills and limestone ridges in the lower section. It incorporated an image of the Rainbow Serpent, indicating the presence of the ancestral forces that vivify the land. The final work of the three 2007 entries was a nice 1989 board featuring a statuesque image of a Kangaroo which appeared as if it were the embodiment of a particular site amongst the surrounding hills. It sold for $18,000 at Lawson~Menzies in November (Lot 117). While the best of his figurative works have done well, a large number of George’s works are executed in a very dark palette and lack the allure of works by several of his contemporaries. There has been difficulty in selling both his large, highly estimated works such as Berlanyji Country 1990, which passed in at auction both in 1999 and 2005 when offered at Philips ($20,000-25,000) and Lawson~Menzies ($25,000-35,000) respectively. Those that have failed to sell were created between 1986 and 1990 and have carried a wide variety of estimates. While two carvings of Creator Snakes both failed to sell, a lovely small carved fish created in 1988 achieved $3,120 when offered at Lawson~Menzies with an estimate of $1,500-2,000 in November 2006 (Lot 233). The best works by George Mung Mung rarely appear for sale. The majority of these were created prior to the introduction of synthetic glue binders making the quality of the surface of many works extremely delicate and alluring. The organic surfaces, figurative detail and delicacy of execution make these paintings highly desirable, and within his oeuvre there exist remarkable treasures of rare brilliance. George passed away just as Warmun began to gain wide recognition and it is amazing to recall that many of his paintings were created at a time when there really was no market for East Kimberly art at all. Mary Macha who played an influential role in promoting the work of these artists has often been quoted as remarking how very hard it was, having been told by the Aboriginal Arts and Crafts company ‘don’t buy any more of that stuff, there’s no market‘ (Laurie 2000: 14). Although this is now far from the case, George did not see the full glory that Warmun would achieve, nor have the chance to realize his own individual potential as an artist as he might have done. He was a great teacher, who was absolutely devoted to the Warmun school in his desire to pass on cultural knowledge to future generations of Gidja children, and would have been astounded and delighted to know how productively the seeds the he and his contemporaries sowed have grown to bear fruit. He is an artist whose works are included in many important public and private collections, and should never be overlooked by those fortunate enough to be present when a work becomes available for purchase. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - UNTITLED ( BUSH RAISIN MAN) Price AU$3,000.00 ALISON (JOJO) PURUNTATAMERI - WINGA (TIDAL MOVEMENT/WAVES) Out of stock LILY YIRDINGALI JURRAH HARGRAVES NUNGARRAYI - KURLURRNGALINYPA JUKURRPA Price From AU$13,500.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Out of stock JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

Artist Profile for Lillian Kerinaiua < Back Lillian Kerinaiua Lillian Kerinaiua ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE LILLIAN KERINAIUA - PUKAMANI SOLD AU$720.00 LILLIAN KERINAIUA - PUKAMANI POLES Sold AU$0.00 LILLIAN KERINAIUA - PUKAMANI SOLD AU$660.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Lillian Kerinaiua ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

Artist Profile for Sarah Morton Kngwarrey < Back Sarah Morton Kngwarrey Sarah Morton Kngwarrey ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Sarah Morton Kngwarrey ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

WatsonTommy Tommy (Yannima) Watson Tommy (Yannima) Watson 1935 - 2017 Pitjantjatjara elder Tommy Watson gained wide domestic and international exposure in an astonishingly short amount of time. Beginning his artistic career in 2002, his paintings were greeted with instant acclaim. His first works were created at the community arts centre in Irrunytju (also named Wingellina) located 12 km south-west of the tri-state border where the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia meet. This was just 44 kilometres east of his birthplace at Anamarapiti, circa 1935. Though he recalled visiting Papunya in his youth, observing the germination of an art movement there, it was not until later that he himself felt compelled to lay down his stories in paint. Watson's debut at the 2002 Desert Mob show in Alice Springs was followed by his participation in a series of domestic group exhibitions from which his reputation gained momentum. Shortly thereafter, the sale of a major painting for $36,300, in an auction organised in 2003 to raise money for the struggling art centre, created a frenzy around his work. The catalogue for the sale was distributed widely amongst collectors. The demand for his paintings has outstripped supply ever since. On learning of the sale, Tommy Watson and his entourage travelled to Alice Springs where he painted 42 works for Red Sand Gallery. He subsequently entered into a representative relationship with art dealer, John Ioannou, the owner of Agathon Gallery. Their exclusive arrangement became the subject of much controversy, given that it was a break-away from the established avenue of representation through community art centres. However, the calibre of work that Watson had consistently produced for Ioannou was a testimony to the success of their professional relationship. Other artists working at Irrunytju were obviously impressed as, before long, the community council offered Ioannou the opportunity to exclusively manage and market all of the art centre’s art. Other painters from this geographic region, the Spinifex people, have recorded the effect of the British nuclear testing in this country during the 1950s in a somewhat similar manner to the way in which Watson expressed the history of the land in his own work. Grounded in his paintings are rockholes, mountain ranges, and creekbeds, however, we see these transmitted in waves of light. Many of his paintings are, in fact, evocative of nuclear shock waves, light waves, and explosions. They meet the dual demands of the contemporary Indigenous Australian art market in that they tend towards abstract expressionism while conforming to traditional practice through layering and ‘dotting’. Watson’s paintings seem to shift and shimmer out of description. His paintings have been described as ‘incandescent’, an interesting and revealing use of a term defined as 'shining or glowing with heat’. Particularly apt, because ‘hot’ is the term that, again and again, was used to describe the artist himself. Tommy Watson’s prominence was ultimately cemented when, in 2006, he was commissioned to create a permanent installation in the new Musee du Quai Branly, in Paris. The piece he created, Wipu Rockhole, was made using baked enamel on stainless steel and converted into a ceiling mural. It presents a radical transposition in medium as a traditional painting embedded in architecture. Notably, his transition to stardom was actually far from contrived, or even self-driven. This is perhaps why the description of 'art star' was so incongruous when applied to Watson. He preferred not to enter into art dialogue at all, a fact that was helped by his almost total reliance on his first language, Pitjantjatjara. The sense of great expectations surrounding Tommy Watson would have presented a challenge to any artist, yet he remained impervious to hype. He continued to live according to the traditional culture that he recorded in his paintings. His integrity was displayed in his opposition to painting works upon demand, ‘I paint works from my heart. I can’t do those works again … it can’t be real Dreaming if I do’ (Agathon Galleries). This transcendent philosophy is reflected in paintings that, at their best, are truly great works of art. To outline the rise of Tommy Watson chronologically would read almost as a how-to in crossing the threshold from ‘next big thing’ to ‘the hottest thing’ in the market. Since he first emerged on the art scene, his trajectory has been unparalleled in the annals of Aboriginal art. From obscurity in 2002 he rose to become the 27th most important artist of the movement by 2007, and 14th by the end of 2012, by which time his records transcended those of any other living Aboriginal artist other than Ronnie Tjampitjinpa. During August 2003, shortly after Cromwell’s achieved a massive $36,300 on the sale of the 140 x 177 cm Kukutjara 2003 at a fundraising auction in Sydney, the Aboriginal art world’s attention focused on Tommy Watson’s work with searing intensity. On hearing the news, Tommy and members of his family had travelled to Alice Springs and supplied paintings to Red Sand Gallery. Unsure of the prices they should attach to them, given the only sale they had heard of was at a charity auction, Red Sand offered one of the forty-two works they had secured from the artist through Shapiro’s March 2005 auction. Measuring 121 x 200 cm and carrying an estimate of $15,000-18,000 it sold for $30,000 on the hammer ($36,000 including buyer's premium and GST). It was a work that had barely time for the paint to dry. To say this stirred up a hornets' nest would be an understatement. The commercial ramifications were still being played out in the courts two years later and Mary Knights, the art coordinator at the Irrunytju Art Centre whose position was secured by the funds raised during the auction, ignited a cauldron of controversy hotter even than the deep reds and vibrant orange textured fields of the artist’s multi-layered palette. Disillusioned by the magnitude of these two sales and the small percentage of the money he had received in return, Tommy Watson decided to stop painting altogether and apparently did not work again until persuaded to do so by John Ioannou, who offered him, in his native Pitjantjatjarra tongue, a deal that would see him earn more than $600,000 from his art during the following 12 months. In Tommy Watson’s solo exhibition, held at Ioannou’s Agathon Gallery in October 2005, no less than ten of the 30 paintings were priced at $55,000 and all had sold prior to the official opening. During the same month, Shapiro’s included a second work by the artist from Red Sand, which sold for $33,600. This work, Kungkarrakalpa 2005 was smaller than their previous offering just six months earlier at just 120 x 150 cm, yet the estimate had doubled to $30,000-40,000. In just over two years Tommy Watson was firmly established as a ‘superstar’, able to command a higher price for his new works than any other contemporary Aboriginal artist then painting. The strength of interest in Watson’s work was confirmed by the length of the list of anxious Agathon Gallery clients waiting to purchase a work. Little wonder then that the level of interest in the major work Waltitjarra, 2006 measuring 204 x 251 cm in Lawson~Menzies May 2007 sale saw it achieve his highest price to date. Submitted by Ioannou, the painting was one of a number held in the trust fund for which the entire proceeds were to revert to the artist. After spirited bidding from six potential buyers drove the price beyond its $80,000-100,000 presale estimate, two intrepid buyers pushed the price to $200,000 forcing the successful buyer to pay a staggering $240,000 for a work created less than 12 months earlier. In 2009, Sotheby’s re-offered the painting that originally sold at the Cromwell’s fundraiser, an event attended by a great deal of expectation, especially given that it was the first Tommy Watson painting ever offered to Sotheby’s clients. Originally purchased for $36,300 the painting sold the second time around for $96,000. Watson's market performance in 2010 proved that potential consignee's were justified in holding back major works given the economic climate of the time. The collector who offered up Iyarka 2008, with an estimate of $80,000-100,000 was not rewarded for his bravery. It failed to sell in Menzies March sale (Lot 70). However, two lovely small works did sell in the $20,000-$30,000 range. Watson painted few small works and these are always eagerly snapped up at affordable prices. By 2014 Watson's relationship with John Ioannou had broken down and Alice Springs art dealer Chris Simon had become his exclusive international representative. With the prices of anything other than very small works already beyond the pocket of small investors, Tommy's large paintings continued to increase in value in the primary market. Between 2013 and his death in 2017 a staggering 55 works appeared at various auction houses of which only 25 sold, bringing his clearance rate down to only 50%. However, this belies the fact that Chris Simon's coterie of primary market galleries have been selling Tommy's works with unfailing success. Despite his mixed fortunes at auction, there is little doubt that over the next decade Tommy Watson will become one of the top 10 artists of the movement and eventually firmly establish himself just behind the market leaders. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - UNTITLED ( BUSH RAISIN MAN) Price AU$3,000.00 ALISON (JOJO) PURUNTATAMERI - WINGA (TIDAL MOVEMENT/WAVES) Out of stock LILY YIRDINGALI JURRAH HARGRAVES NUNGARRAYI - KURLURRNGALINYPA JUKURRPA Price From AU$13,500.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Out of stock JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

Sydney Contemporary 2024 Brochure | Cooee Art Leven SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY 2024 CATALOGUE VIEW MORE SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY DETAILS VIEW MORE SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY DETAILS

Ngarukuruwala Kapi Murrukupuni (we sing to the land) Barks & paintings from the Artists of Munupi 16 November - 9 December 2023 Exhibition Opening: 16 November 6-8pm First name Last name Email GET MORE INFORMATION Thanks for registering your interest we will be in touch soon!

Artist Profile for Shorty Jangala Robertson < Back Shorty Jangala Robertson Shorty Jangala Robertson ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE SHORTY JANGALA ROBERTSON - NGAPA JUKURRPA (WATER DREAMING) SOLD AU$7,500.00 SHORTY JANGALA ROBERTSON - NGAPA JUKURRPA (WATER DREAMING) SOLD AU$4,500.00 SHORTY JANGALA ROBERTSON - NGAPA JUKURRPA-WATER DREAMING Sold AU$0.00 SHORTY JANGALA ROBERTSON - NGAPA JUKURRPA (WATER DREAMING) SOLD AU$7,500.00 SHORTY JANGALA ROBERTSON - NGAPA JUKURRPA (WATER DREAMING) SOLD AU$3,500.00 SHORTY JANGALA ROBERTSON - NGAPA Sold AU$0.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Shorty Jangala Robertson Shorty Jangala Robertson was born at Jila (Chilla Well), a large soakage and claypan north west of Yuendumu. He lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle with his parents, older brother and extended Warlpiri family. They travelled vast distances across desert country, passing through Warlukurlangu, south west of Jila and Ngarlikurlangu, north of Yuendumu, visiting Jangalas, his skin brothers. His childhood memories consisted of stories associated with the Conniston Massacre of Aboriginal people and close to Jila, families were shot at Wantaparri. Shorty Jangala Robertson had virtually no contact with white fellas during his youth but remembered leaving Jila for Mt Theo 'to hide' from being shot. His father died at Mt Theo, after which Shorty and his mother moved to Mt Doreen Station, and subsequently the new settlement of Yuendumu. During World War II, the army took people from Yuendumu to the other Warlpiri settlement at Lajamanu. Shorty was taken and separated from his mother, however, she came to get him on foot and together they traveled hundreds of miles back to Chilla Well. Drought, food and medical supplies forced Shorty and his family back to Yuendumu from time to time. His working life was full of adventure and hard work for different enterprises in the Alice Springs Yuendumu area. He finally settled at Yuendumu in 1967 after the Australian Citizen Referendum. It is extraordinary in all his travels and jobs over his whole working life, that he escaped the burgeoning and flourishing Central Desert art movement of the 1970's and 1980's. Thus Shorty's paintings are fresh, vigorous and new. His use of colour to paint and interpret his dreamings of Ngapa (Water), Watiyawarnu (Acacia), Yankirri (Emu) and Pamapardu (Flying Ant) was vital, yet upholding the Warlpiri tradition. He lived at Yuendumu with his wife and fellow artist Lady Nungarrayi Robertson until he passed away in 2014. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

AndrewBrook Brook Andrew Brook Andrew 1970 Born in Sydney and university educated, Brook Andrew is an artist, curator, lecturer and writer who is connected through his mother’s kinship to the Wiradjuri who live around Cowra in New South Wales. Through his work in a variety of areas, Andrew, a fervent and forthright social commentator, explores the history of race relations in Australia, colonialism, ethnography, cultural identity, gender politics, globalization, and other themes by employing powerful postmodern imagery, delivered with sociological savvy and slick visual appeal. His high impact, high-energy works are immediate, urgent, and can be at once both beautiful and humourous. They comment on, and elicit responses from, both Indigenous and non-indigenous viewers through a variety of computer-generated photo-media including conventional screen print, neon projected on to large-scale screens lit from behind, and printing on to Duraclear, a material conventionally used in advertising. Created on a large scale, and produced in a refined yet glossy pop style his works are provocative, challenging, and visually dynamic. To Brook Andrew the political is inseparable from the artistic – Art is Polemic, His most recognisable image, and the work that shot the artist to political and artistic prominence, is titled Sexy and Dangerous 2002. It is a name that encapsulates a clever double entendre; poking fun at the art world, whilst implicitly and more seriously, criticising a number of remnants of colonialist thought that continue to exist in society in general. The nineteenth-century archival image depicts the head and torso of a naked virile and handsome young man adorned only in ceremonial body paint, nose-bone and headdress, set against Mandarin and English text. It is a play on the notion of ‘the noble Aboriginal savage’. The archival ‘ethnographic’ image is a studio photograph taken at the turn of the twentieth century, with the purpose of recording species in the colonies (in particular, dying species) to be sent back to England; part curiosity, part documentation. By placing such an image in a contemporary context Andrew invokes a dangerous politic. One which argues that just like early 20th century ethnographic photography, a century later we are just as prone to conventional categorisations in relation to the black body; the black artist and black art. Just as with Tracy Moffatt and Gordon Bennett who refuse to be categorised as ‘Aboriginal’ artists, to describe Andrews as a contemporary Aboriginal artist should be done with some hesitation. Part of the ongoing dialectic of Andrew’s work is a challenge to that kind of casting, by which the art world defines artists, and in doing so, makes them marketable. ‘When I first started making art, people would label me as ‘the gay black artist’… But at the end of the day, I’m part of a broader art spectrum’ (Andrews, speaking on Message Stick, ABC, 2004). Beyond his own art practice, Brook Andrew has, in recent years, assumed an active role in cultural politics, convening the program ‘Blakatak’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, 2005, and delivering a paper at the Globalisation and Post-colonial Writing conference in Kolkutta, India. ‘Blakatak’, the onomatopoeic title taking root in the so called ‘blak art' movement, represents a unique development of Andrew’s self-identified position as a political shaker. Rather than facilitating a program of thought centred around Aboriginal art per se, Andrews chose to bring into focus an exploration of a ‘non-culturally dominant approach’ to contemporary art (Meanjin, 2005: 142). Interesting, because as Andrews perspicaciously observes, discussions set around an oppositional dialectic (us/them, blak art/art world) often only serve to reinforce that very divide. This broad awareness of cultural hybridity is manifest in Andrew’s art. His most recent work might be described as a study in detournement, or ‘culture jamming’ – the destabilisation of image through the introduction of a distortive visual or textual element. Blair French (1999) writes ‘a difficulty of Brook Andrew’s work – and also a source of its fascination – [is] a simultaneous aestheticisation and critique of the image’. In later works Andrew has added an ongoing textual element to his work that deliberately, sometimes violently, goes against the grain of the image. In Dhally Yullayn (Passionate Skin) 2005, nationalist symbols are set against each other as warring images, the Australian emu eating (or vomiting) the acronym USA, to the backdrop of the Union Jack. The title belies the violence of the image. If success in getting your message across is measured in prominence, then Brook Andrew has surely succeeded, to this point in time at least. The notoriety Andrew has enjoyed since creating Sexy and Dangerous in 2002 has enabled him to continue to push artistic boundaries on a number of fronts. In 2004 he produced a series of black nudes on Cibachrome. These works titled Kalar Midday (Land of the Three Rivers) are starkly beautiful and no less provocative than his early work. His 2005 exhibition Peace and Hope at the Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi suggested a more transcendental direction, perhaps the expression of a less reactionary, more considered, academic Andrew. Not that he is likely to give up producing high impact work. His popular acclaim lies in the fact that he is both playful and political, delivering dangerous work with a spoonful of sugar. The saccharine, illuminated canvasses allow us to laugh at ourselves and instinctively feel guilty for laughing and then, perhaps, to understand something of the political message. Brook Andrew created no less than ten solo exhibitions between 1996 and 2006 as well as participating in Australian Perspecta 1995 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art in 1996; participating in important exhibitions in New Caledonia, the Netherlands and Japan; and undertaking several overseas residencies throughout 2000-2006. In 1998 he was won the Kate Challis RAKA Award, for an artwork by an Aboriginal visual artist and in 2004 won the Work on Paper Award at the 21st Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Brook Andrew has been a prodigious and conspicuous artist in the primary market only since 1996 and, despite producing thoughtful work of quality since that time, is most widely recognised for his now famous image Sexy and Dangerous, which has attracted an unusually high level of both commercial and political interest. The piece, created in 1996 in an edition of ten transparent digital images on Perspex, first sold at auction for $14,100 at Christies in June 2002 against an estimate of $6,000-8,000 (Lot 19). Another, offered by Sotheby’s in October 2004 estimated at $12,000-18,000 sold for $33, 400 (Lot 144) while just 18 months later in June 2006 Deutscher~Menzies offered another copy at $20,000-30,000 and achieved $36,000 (Lot 37). However when it appeared in August 2007 (Lot 111) at Bonham’s & Goodman Melbourne it carried a far more ambitious estimate still. Their optimism was rewarded in spades when it sold for a staggering $84,000 against the presale estimate of $50,000-80,000. With interest at this level, Sexy and Dangerous had joined Tracy Moffatt’s Something More to become one of Australia’s defining and classic iconic Aboriginal images. Since its first release in 1996, Andrew reproduced Sexy and Dangerous in two separate editions. In June 2006 Deutscher~Menzies offered another smaller version at $20,000-30,000 and achieved $36,000 (Lot 37). In 2008 another work Sexy and Dangerous II created by the artist as a duraclear print mounted on Perspex in 1997 entered the artists top ten recording a sale of $21,600. The same image sold in 2015 for $29,455 Since creating these Sexy and Dangerous images in the 1990s, Andrew has experimented with new mediums and themes that impart a technological and conceptual sophistication. He continues to use slick materials to give his works an edgy and alluring finish, with his aim focussed at a far wider audience than the actual purchaser. The pop art aesthetic realised in Duraclear, Cibachrome, neon, and advertising materials demands attention from the viewer, while furnishing the artist with a range of reproductive possibilities, which he has seized upon. These have consistently proven to be his most successful works commercially. In 2019, for instance, Australia I, a silkscreen image (2nd in an edition of 3) in gold leaf and mixed media on linen measuring 200 x 300 cm entered his top ten rsults at 4th place after reaching $46,300 at Deutcher & Hackett. Nevertheless, many works are likely to struggle to hold the value placed on them by his representative galleries, which have increased his prices steadily in line with his rising profile. While Brook Andrew is likely to continue to be one of the favourites of the curatorial museum set, it is unlikely that any but a limited range and number of his works will continue to hold interest and grow in value on the secondary market. Screen prints and photography have been notoriously unsuccessful at auction for all but a handful of artists, now mainly deceased, unless the image and materials make a powerful and immediate impact. Andrew’s 2004 exhibition, Kalar Midday (Land of Three Rivers Series) comprised dark glossy photographs on Cibachrome, suggestive of a very subtle politic - a polemic pertaining to beauty, the politic of the black body. They had echoes of Bill Henson’s aesthetic about them however, unlike Henson, Andrew produced these prints in admittedly small, but limited editions. While these are likely to hold some interest for collectors it would be surprising if his 2005 works collectively entitled ‘Peace and Hope’ were to increase significantly in value over time. This collection of screen prints represents a return to Andrew’s fascination with packaging and advertising. Despite the prominence and overwhelming popularity of the Sexy and Dangerous series, other works have begun to command respectable prices at auction as well. 2016 saw Ignoratia (Kookaburra) fetch $22,000 against a high presale estimate of 16,000 (wedging into his top ten at number 9) and 2017 saw a sculpture, Suitcase #1, achieve $18,600 against a presale estimate of $8,000 - 12,000. This might signify that secondary market collectors are beginning to appreciate the artist for his overall vision rather than just his most popular images. Works from the Sexy and Dangerous series now hold seven of Andrew’s highest prices at auction. The most important guide, I suspect, to secondary market interest in his work was the failure of another image from the Sexy and Dangerous series. This failed to sell at Christies in London when offered with an estimate of GBP10,000-15,000. Once again the comparison to Tracy Moffatt is apt. Of the dozen or more works in her Something More series only the iconic ‘title work’ has sold for prices in excess of $150,000. The best of the others have fetched no more than $45,000, while many fail to attract any interest at all. This has led the artist, in what appeared at first to be the most bizarre of reactions, to forbid copyright permission on this one image alone, lest it lead to the perception that she is a one trick pony. While this is neither true of Moffatt or Andrew, who are both capable of powerfully interesting work, the success of these two images is both a burden and a blessing. Brook Andrew is still quite young and has made a major impact during the past ten years. While it is still far too early make any firm predictions in relation to his work, watch out for anything with a seamless finish and menacing, sexual or emotional undercurrent. I suspect that these are likely to set the market on edge whenever they make an appearance in the future. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - UNTITLED ( BUSH RAISIN MAN) Price AU$3,000.00 ALISON (JOJO) PURUNTATAMERI - WINGA (TIDAL MOVEMENT/WAVES) Out of stock LILY YIRDINGALI JURRAH HARGRAVES NUNGARRAYI - KURLURRNGALINYPA JUKURRPA Price From AU$13,500.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Out of stock JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

HELEN S. TIERNAN | MEMORY SPACE Cooee Art Redfern & Online From 17 April to 08 May 2021 Viewing Room HELEN S. TIERNAN | MEMORY SPACE Artists: Helen S. Tiernan From 17 April to 08 May 2021 Cooee Art Redfern & Online Helen S. Tiernan uses her art like an archaeological tool, to interrogate, challenge and explore the many layers and contradictions that lie below the surface of contact history. From her earliest years at Canberra School of art, Helen’s interest lay in narrative, historical, satirical, and romantic art. She began by using the embossed and relief patterning found in decorative interiors, employing wallpaper as a metaphor in validating and acknowledging the historical female domestic experience, including the claustrophobia and repressive control that creative women experienced within the confines of their homes and family and extrapolated this to Aboriginal women in servitude. In 2014, Tiernan presented Farming Without Fences, her first solo exhibition at Cooee Art. The exhibition was profoundly influenced by Bill Gammage’s ground-breaking book, The Biggest Estate on Earth - How Aborigines Made Australia. The paintings, like the book, explored the contrasting ways our ancient continent has been viewed and ‘managed’ by colonisers and First Australians. By 2017, Helen had turned her attention to the theme of first contact in the antipodes, drawing upon material that documented the process of ‘transculturation’, during the 235 years since Australia colonisation. Her richly research-based art mined both European and Indigenous archival records from the colonial art of Joseph Lycett to Tupia (James Cook’s Polynesian navigator) to the imagery of William Barak and Tommy McRae. Her works were alive with contemporaneous references to the writing of Paul Irish Hidden in Plain View, Bruce Pasco Dark Emu, Bill Gammage The Greatest Estate on Earth, and art historian Ian McLean, revealing the intimate knowledge of, and deep connection to, Country. The exhibition, Transculturation - Sublime & Surreal Encounters of First Encounters in the Antipodes, featured three major works about Cook’s adventures in the Pacific and the role played by his Polynesian navigator Tupia. All three were acquired by the National Maritime Museum. In this latest exhibition, Helen S. Tiernan has been inspired by the ground-breaking international touring exhibition Songlines - tracking the seven sisters. Foremost amongst a number of other influences have been The Memory Code, written by Lynne Kelly, thus the exhibition title, and Alison Page’s Clever Country. In this exhibition Tiernan’s landscapes are cultured spaces, repositories of ancient knowledge and deep memory. They are storied with Songlines and Tjukurrpa and inflected with the moralities arising from mythology that reminds us of how values and identities are formed. By re-digesting and transforming history through her own creative process Helen S. Tiernan challenges us to revisit and re-interpret it. Her works present us with Songlines that are richly multi-layered post-contemporary insights into what it means to be a truly cognisant Australian. - Adj. Professor Margo Neale | Head: Centre for Indigenous Knowledges, National Museum of Australia Senior Indigenous Curator National Museum of Australia VIEW CATALOGUE EX211