Artist Profile for Nora Wompi < Back Nora Wompi Nora Wompi ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE NORA WOMPI - KNUAWARRITJI Sold AU$2,800.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Nora Wompi 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 Charlie Ward < Back Charlie Ward Charlie Ward ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Charlie Ward 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 Gloria Tamerre Petyarre < Back Gloria Tamerre Petyarre Gloria Tamerre Petyarre 1938 ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE GLORIA PETYARRE - BODY DESIGN SOLD AU$2,800.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - CEREMONIAL BODY PAINTING (TRIPTYCH) Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH MEDICINE (BUSH LEAVES) Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH MEDICINE Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH MEDICINE Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH MEDICINE Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH LEAVES Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - LEAVES Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH MEDICINE LEAVES Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH MEDICINE LEAVES Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH LEAF MEDICINE DREAMING Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - BUSH MEDICINE LEAVES Sold AU$0.00 GLORIA PETYARRE - MOUNTAIN DEVIL LIZARD DREAMING Sold AU$0.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Gloria Tamerre Petyarre 1938 Raised in a remote part of the Eastern Desert and instructed in Anmatyerre law and traditions, Gloria Petyarre participated in the first art programs organized at Utopia in 1977 when 39 years of age. These early batik-making workshops marked the emergence of Aboriginal women artists. Up to this time they had commonly assisted men in the completion of their paintings, but were rarely permitted their own paint and canvas. From the outset their works were informed by the natural shapes and patterns of local leaves, flowers, seeds and grasses which provided the touchstone of form and structure. Gloria’s early batiks were richly colourful and reflected the daily interaction of the desert women with their environment. When art advisor Rodney Gooch introduced the women to acrylic paints and canvas in the early 1980’s a range of new possibilities were opened up that were both distinctively female and without precedent in the Aboriginal art movement. Until this time women had been unacknowledged as artists in part due to a belief that cultural values and iconography dwelt in the domain of men only, but also because women were less forward about discussing ‘women’s business’ such as their rituals, responsibilities, journeying and all important, Awelye or ceremonial body painting. Traditionally, men and women of Aboriginal societies played complementary though differentiated roles. The different yet, equally powerful cultural role of women manifested from this time as a rich abundance of unique imagery and expressiveness that began to ignite interest amongst art collectors around the world. Gloria’s first paintings depicted designs from the body painting she had been taught as a child by family elders, literally 'lifted off the body and applied to the canvas' (Hodges 1998). Details of these designs can represent the patterning of desert animals, birds or plants such as the Mountain Devil Lizard, the Emu or even wind scattered grass seeds. Ancestral beings are honoured, good rains and harvests are acknowledged and the rules of relatedness between people and country are carefully retraced and strengthened within these markings, though always suitably obscured from the uninitiated. Over time and with a tangible excitement Gloria began to more freely explore the picture plane, experimenting with bands of parallel lines, curvilinear patterns, colour schemes, and textural areas of dots and dashes. Her own sense of artistic authority quickly developed, surprising all with its boldness and beauty. Working alongside Emily Kame Kngwarreye and inspired by the older woman’s groundbreaking success and brave, expressive abstraction, Gloria similarly tapped her own experience to produce a confident and distinctive style. Her simplicity of focus allows a concentrated energy to build through pattern and repetition, reflecting the rhythm of traditional song and dance, sometimes whirling and flowing with dots and dashes of colour, other times emphasizing line in more spare and austere works which nevertheless are still 'pulsing with life' (Hodges 1998). Utopia’s longstanding status, both nationally and internationally, as a vibrant art making community has rested greatly on the strength and creativity of its women. During the successful land claim that in 1979 returned ownership to its traditional Anmatyerre and Alyawarre inhabitants, the women presented the greater part of their claim through Awelye; 'they painted the body designs, performed the dances and displayed the ritual objects that belong to their clan areas' (Brody 1989). Re-affirming their Dreaming heritage and consolidating an identity deeply rooted in relationship to their country strengthened the whole community, determining a continuing central role for women in its uniquely autonomous management. This history is reflected in Gloria’s dynamic paintings which capture the energy of the land and communicate an underlying and vibrant spirituality. During a career that has spanned almost two decades Gloria Petyarre has become one of Australia’s most successful female artists. That she has done so while working primarily as an independent artist, without assistance from a permanent art centre, is a testimony to her special ability to negotiate across a wide range of cultural and artistic relationships. These have included her special relationship with artist and gallery owner Christopher Hodges whose mentorship and assistance has resulted in many of her finest works. Besides regular solo exhibitions at his gallery, Utopia Art in Sydney, Hodges has ensured that her work has been included in important prizes and landmark exhibitions. For one of these works she was awarded the prestigious Wynne Prize, by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1999. Her reputation has been further enhanced by the gallery by ensuring that her works toured internationally and by including them in important European exhibitions. Gloria continues to maintain this relationship while working with a variety of other dealers. They include her nephew Fred Torres and his Dacou Gallery, as well as Tim Jennings and his Mbantua Gallery in Alice Springs, and a number of other smaller dealers. Gloria is an artist who has grown in self-assuredness over the years, especially since emerging from behind her more famous aunt Emily Kngwarreye. She seems to derive great pleasure in the fact that she can produce work for, and enjoy the patronage of, many different people. That she take spride in the integrity and quality of her work have ensured her success. The same knowledge and vision that enriches her work sustains her as a person as she travels the world today, participating in significant exhibitions and projects, such as the mural at the Kansas City Zoo, which she designed and executed with her husband Ronnie Price. Though holding firmly to her Aboriginal traditions, Gloria continually expands upon them in her art, moving beyond the literal to create images that radiate their own integrity, thereby confirming her important place in Australia’s current contemporary art scene. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Gloria Petyarre has been an extremely prolific painter influenced, no doubt, by her equally prolific aunt Emily Kame Kngwarreye, with whom she lived and worked for many years. Although Gloria remained very much in Emily’s shadow during her aunt’s life, she emerged as an artist of note from 1996 onward. Having watched Emily progress from delicately intimate to more and more gestural works, Gloria’s own paintings became freer naturalistic expressions of landscape as her own career progressed. The women of the Utopia region seem to fall into these distinctly opposite creative camps with very few moving between the two. Paintings are either painstakingly rendered fields of multi-layered coloured dotting with little or no structure, or wildly gestural, unselfconscious and haptic. The latter has suited Gloria’s experimental nature and has seen her able to create large expressive works with a natural ability. Her most popular and successful motif by far has been her Bush Leaf or Bush Medicine Dreamings which work best when the flow in the pattern is most pleasing. These may be executed in relatively small brushstrokes and subtle colourings or bold expressive highly colour charged dabs. Given that Gloria has been so productive it is not surprising that as of 2019, 882 paintings have been offered for sale at auction since 1998 when they first appeared. While these have included many fine large canvases her clearance rate has been just 52%. This low rate is easily attributable to the fact that she still paints vigorously and so many primary market galleries offer her paintings for sale. Notwithstanding her fine reputation, only seven paintings have sold at auction for more than $20,000 with her highest price being the $78,000 recorded at Lawson Menzies in November 2007 for the large, 164 x 350 cm, work Bush Medicine 2004 (Lot 58). With her average auction result at a low $3,125 it is easy to understand why only a small amount of her very large oeuvre will ever be accepted on the secondary market. Gloria's 2007 record price of $78,000 more than doubled her previous record, which stood for more than three years. The purchaser of this work paid Sotheby’s $34,575 in 2004 for a five panel untitled leaf painting measuring 185 x 420 cm at their Melbourne sale in July 2004 (Lot 243 ). In 2006, Bush Leaves , just over half that size and still ‘fresh’ having been painted just two years earlier, fetched $26,000 at Lawson-Menzies November sale (Lot 219). With such a low clearance rate and so many average poorly provenanced works available from tourist shops and e-bay, collectors would be well advised to have more in mind than just her name when buying her work. Results for 2007-2008 were a perfect example with 64 works being offered for sale and just 28 selling for an average price of $7,509. Nothing much has changed since that time. In 2015 a staggering 71 works were offered for sale at recognised reputable public auction houses of which 68% sold. These figures saw her become the 7th most successful artist that year even though the average price achieved for these works was just $1,588. It was a similar story in 2016 with 82 works offered of which 46 sold for an average price of $998 and 2019 when 32 of 65 works solf for an average of $1,614. Even so she was the 11th most successful artist in 2016 and the 7th on 2019. While major works of high quality and ecellent provenance by Gloria Petyarre will no doubt prove over time to be very good investments, the vast majority of her output will not. Like Emily Kngwarreye before her, who has similar clearance rates at auction, auction houses will be offered far more paintings for each sale than they are able to accommodate. Sotheby's, Christies and Bonham's are likely to avoid them altogether other than those painted for Utopia Art Sydney, which submitted her prize winning works into the Wynne Prize for landscape art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1999 ad 2004. Yet despite these reservations, Gloria Petyarre has clearly earned a deserved reputation as one of the most important female artists of the Eastern Desert and her renown is likely to grow over time as more and more of her best works appear in auction catalogues into the future. 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 .

INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION Tuesday 17th June 2025 AEST 7:00pm Register and view artworks here

RETURN AND REFUND POLICY: Hassle-free returns. Full refund upon receipt of the returned artwork in original condition. SHIPPING POLICY: Carefully packaged artworks. Choose standard or express shipping. Shipping costs vary. Tracking provided. International shipping available. SHIPPING POLICY At Art Leven (formerly Cooee Art), we understand that each artwork is unique and requires different packing and shipping needs. As such, we organise freight of artworks both domestically within Australia and internationally, providing quotes on a case-by-case basis. Shipping Options We offer two primary methods of shipping your artwork: Rolled and sent in a tube Stretched and delivered (locally or crated for overseas) For example, for an average size painting measuring 150 x 120 cm, the costs are as follows: Domestic Shipping within Australia: Rolled and sent in a tube: Average price $120 Stretched and delivered locally in Sydney: Average price $150 Stretched and sent to Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra: Average price $275 International Shipping: Rolled and sent in a tube: Average price $250 Stretched and crated: Average price $1,200 Please note that these are average prices and the actual cost might vary depending dates, the size and weight of the artwork. Request a Quote For a detailed quote on any artwork, please fill in the inquiry form found next to each artwork with your address and phone number. Mention in the comment section that you would like a delivery quote and one of our staff members will get back to you shortly. Contact Us If you have any questions regarding shipping or need assistance with calculating costs, please contact us at info@artleven.com or call us at +61 (02) 9300 9233.

Artist Profile for Kelly Napanankga Michaels < Back Kelly Napanankga Michaels Kelly Napanankga Michaels ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Kelly Napanankga Michaels 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 Lloyd Jampijinpa Brown < Back Lloyd Jampijinpa Brown Lloyd Jampijinpa Brown ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE LLOYD JAMPIJINPA BROWN - YANKIRRI JUKURRPA (EMU DREAMING) - NGARLIKIRLANGU Sold AU$240.00 LLOYD JAMPIJINPA BROWN - YANKIRRI JUKURRPA (EMU DREAMING) - NGARLIKIRLAN Sold AU$240.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Lloyd Jampijinpa Brown 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 .

NgalPoly Poly Ngal Poly Ngal Poly (Polly) Ngal was born in 1936 into the Anmatyarre tribe. Later she moved to Camel Camp in Utopia with her family and sisters, Kathleen Ngal, Maisy Ngal and Angeline Pwerl. Like many of the women in Utopia, Poly began her artistic career in batik in the early late 1970s, before venturing into painting with acrylic paints on canvas. Poly often assisted her sister Kathleen and also the late Emily Kngwarrey with whom she shared the same country. Together with her sisters, Poly is a senior custodian of the Bush Plum Dreaming. Poly's work depicts the Bush Plum and its effects on her country, illustrating the topography in shades of reds, oranges and yellows reflecting the varying seasonal palette. Like her sister Kathleen, Poly's work uses layer upon layer of colour, creating a multi-dimensional effect to reveal the Bush Plum Ankwety - and her country - Alparra in all its glory. “Poly’s work is the most sensual and loose of the three, echoing Emily's magical touch in her layering of colour to create a rich atmospheric surface, which is very alive, suffused with colour and movement, and redolent of the natural cycles of her totem — the bush plum. Poly has a delicacy of touch reminiscent of the very fine batik work the women were doing there in the 80’s. Hers is very much the work of an older woman, that magic in the blending of underdotting and overdotting, loose, natural, and sensual.” Collection: The Holmes a Court Collection, Perth. Group Exhibitions: 2019 - Women in Colour including Andrea Adamson, Teresa Baker, Patricia Tunkin Baker, Karla Dickens, Sally Gabori, Athena Nangala Granites, Maggie Green, Nungarrayi Myra Herbert, Jennifer Ingkatji, Langaliki Lewis, Minma Marlilu , Jorna Newberry, Poly Ngal, Kathleen Ngale, Charmaine Pwerle, Kitty Napanangka Simon, Kalaya Tjukurrpa, Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty, Liddy Walker at Cooee Art, Sydney. 2008 - Emily Kngwarreye and her Legacy, featuring the following artists: Abie Kemarre Loy, Emily Kngwarreye, Gladdy Kemarre, Gloria Petyarre, Kathleen Ngal, Kathleen Petyarre, Lily Lion Kngwarrey, Minnie Pwerle, Poly Ngal, Sarah Morton Kngwarrey, presented by Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney at Art Front Gallery, Hillside Terrace, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. 2008 - Visions of Utopia, featuring the following artists: Angelina Ngal, Billy Benn Perrurle, Cowboy Loy Pwerl, Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarrey, Elizabeth Mpetyan, Gladdy Kemarr, Jean Kngwarrey, Kathleen Ngal, Maisy Petyarr, Nancy Kunoth Petyarr Petyarr, Pansy Petyarr McLeod, Poly Ngal, Ruby Morton Kngwarrey, Trudy Raggett at Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney. 2003 - 20th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin. 2000Arts d’Australie, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob / Espace Mezzo - Avenue des Champs-Elysées, Paris.; 2000 Arts d’Australie, Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob / Air France, Paris. 1990, 'Utopia - A Picture Story,' an exhibition of 88 works on silk from the Holmes a Court Collection by Utopia artists which toured Eire and Scotland. 1989, Utopia Women's Paintings, the First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project, 1988-89, S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney. Bibliography: Brody, A., 1989, Utopia Women's Paintings: the First Works on Canvas, A Summer Project, 1988-89, exhib. cat., Heytesbury Holdings, Perth. (C) ; Brody, A., 1990, Utopia: a Picture Story, 88 Silk Batiks from the Robert Holmes a Court Collection, Heytesbury Holdings Ltd, Perth. (C) 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 Mowarra Ganambarr < Back Mowarra Ganambarr Mowarra Ganambarr ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE MOWARRA GANAMBARR - DJAKUNG - FRESH WATER FILE SNAKE SOLD AU$1,200.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Mowarra Ganambarr 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 Betty Bundamurra < Back Betty Bundamurra Betty Bundamurra ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE BETTY BUNDAMURRA - SPRING IS NEAR Sold AU$0.00 top Anchor 1 PROFILE Betty Bundamurra 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 .

BEAUTIFUL ART MADE PROPER WAY Cooee Art Redfern - 17 Thurlow St, Redern, NSW 2016 From 15 January to 19 February 2022 BEAUTIFUL ART MADE PROPER WAY Artists from Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists Studio From 15 January to 19 February 2022 BEAUTIFUL ART MADE PROPER WAY Artists from Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists Studio From 15 January to 19 February 2022 Cooee Art Redfern - 17 Thurlow St, Redern, NSW 2016 Established in 2000, the Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists studio is the first in Australia to occupy the intersection between supported studios and Aboriginal Art Centres. The studio provides a means for Aboriginal artists living with a disability to develop and receive recognition for their artistic practices by providing supported studio spaces, a national exhibition schedule, design contracts, multimedia collaborations, art fairs and art award opportunities. “Mwerre Anthurre Art - “Beautiful Art Made Proper Way” - Billy Benn Perrurle VIEW CATALOGUE VIEW VIDEO EX 227

BarakWilli William (King Billy) Barak William (King Billy) Barak 1824 - 1903 William Barak was one of the seminal Indigenous artists of Australia’s early colonial period. His life and art were characterised by the duality inherent in his strong tribal identity and his status as an important intermediary in the cultural dialogue that took place between the black and white inhabitants of the early Victorian settlement. While he was renowned amongst early historians and anthropologists for his stories of Aboriginal life, his art became the vehicle he used toward the end of his life to express his continued sense of connection with traditional life. His paintings, principally created during the 1880s and 1890s, are essentially nostalgic in that his subject remained exclusively the life he had experienced prior to integration into colonial society. In 1835, at just 11 years of age, Barak attended the signing of John Batman’s treaty with his Wurundjeri clansmen, which led to the establishment of Melbourne. As a young man, he joined the Native Mounted Police, having left his community in 1844. At this time the plight of Aboriginal people in colonial Australia had become parlous. 'The Noble Savage myth had collapsed,' wrote Robert Hughes in his first book, The Art of Australia 'and the native had become the butt of every colonial joke' (1966: 42). It had improved, though only marginally, by the time Barak was painting almost half a decade later. In the latter decades of the eighteenth century, Barak did not have a traditional society to return to. His people, the Wurundjeri, had suffered food deprivation and introduced diseases as a consequence of the pastorialisation of Port Phillip land. While Barak was perceived as a figure of successful Aboriginal integration, he used his position to the advantage of the surviving Aboriginal community of the time. Throughout his life, he was a seminal figure in the fight for land rights around the Port Phillip region – remarkable as one of the earliest formal claims to land rights in Australia. His argument to institute viable agricultural reserves was taken seriously by the local government in Melbourne, resulting in the establishment of the Corranderk Aboriginal Reserve on Badger Creek. Later, Barak instigated an investigation into the continuing problems in the region through the Corranderk inquiry of 1881, prompted by a proposal to remove the Aboriginal station in the area. Barak found himself accepted into a particularly high ranking white community at Corranderk, where he lived and painted in his later life. For a time, he lived with the De Pur family, and later the widow Ann Bon, both high ranking society names. Bon was crucial to the promotion of Barak’s art in Australia and overseas, sending several of his drawings back to England where they attracted some attention. What fascinated the public and buyers of the late nineteenth century was the anthropological aspect of Barak’s drawings, in line with the then prevailing interest in ‘primitivism’ and pre-colonial life. While it seems that Bon and the Dr Purs were motivated by genuine altruism, the envisaged 'promoter-protector' role of Bon sits somewhat awkwardly now; it is impossible to escape the fact that Barak lived with the De Purs out of some necessity. Despite his ongoing activism, the cast of Barak as a remnant of the traditional Aboriginal society of South-Eastern Australia, the last ‘noble savage’ even, continued to dominate his art. His painting of ceremony as a primary subject matter is inherently related to his personal struggle as an Aboriginal person estranged from his people. It is a story, which may be located, more generally, in the fight for land rights of the time. And yet, no explanation accompanies Barak’s drawings – he himself declined to elaborate on them – and, as a consequence, the deeper significance of his drawings has never been fully understood. It was only in the latter part of the twentieth century that their artistic merit was really recognised. Unlike the meanings inherent in the work of the contemporary Papunya Tula artists of the early 1970s, there was no Geoff Bardon to draw accompanying sketches illustrating the story behind their art; with Barak, meaning is often ambiguous, and the symbolism of his work varies greatly. However, in common with the Papunya artists a century later, Barak never painted his contemporary context. His entire oeuvre depicts the past as he looks back into pre-colonial times. The repetition of his subject matter, ceremony, as a recurring motif, is an expression of a culture that Barak had by then lost. It was accompanied by a deep feeling of longing and yearning. In Remembering Barak, his niece, Joy Murphy-Wandin wrote, ‘I see scars so deep they bring tears to my eyes and a crushing pain within my heart – a lonely, heartbroken man desperate for the return of his family, his people, and his culture’ (2003: 6). Despite the loss of their specific meaning from a contemporary perspective, Barak’s paintings are a direct visual translation of his traditional culture. They speak a complex visual language. Barak drew stylistically from the traditional visual art of South-eastern Australia. His composition is typically geometric, as human figures and animals are arranged in patterns so dense as to be evocative of chiaroscuro designs. The natural world is drawn as rather more a feature than a background to the composition – each item, flora or fauna, is totemic and bears significance, often in direct relation to the human figures. Aboriginal figures wearing possum skin cloaks are each imbued with an individual personality, such that no two figures are the same. Indeed, the small idiosyncrasies drawn into the figures and objects that appear in Barak’s work may be understood in terms of a symbolism grounded in traditional forms of representation. The designs that appear on the possum skin cloaks and carved weapons are characteristic of certain regions. Body markings are painted in the fashion of miny’ti (sacred designs) demarcating identity and place. Meaning is often ambiguous, where artefacts commonly hold multiple meanings that vary depending on the context and depicted usage. Barak worked with naturally occurring pigments, - charcoal, and red and yellow ochres - combining these with European colourants. Natural pigments mixed in a wash with barium sulphate and ivory black allowed for a greater range of tone and intensity. The green and blue hues, which appear in several of Barak’s drawings, are probably European watercolours. Andrew Sayers (1994) draws an analogy between Barak’s method of combining these materials and the position of Barak himself, situated between his traditional life and European society. However, his use of colour is overwhelmingly restrained and, most commonly, executed in materials either from the earth or strongly related to it. Although largely forgotten or overlooked for almost a century, the figure of William Barak, the artist, has taken on an almost mythical status over the past decade. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, William Barak’s artworks were largely entered into museum collections in Europe, with the largest concentrations in the ethnographic museums of Neuchatel, Berlin and Dresden. In 2003 the National Gallery of Victoria staged the important exhibition, Remembering Barak, at the Ian Potter Centre, no doubt prompted by the recent surge of interest in Barak as a person of cultural significance in Australian art history, and the exponential increase in market demand for his work. However, those paintings and drawings still in private hands are rare indeed and it will only be the luckiest of collectors that will be fortunate to personally own one. Works by William Barak are most notable in the market for their rarity. With a total of 18 recorded sales dating back as far as 1975 his only recorded failures at auction, other than a boomerang offered at Lawson Menzies in 2005, occurred prior to 1990. Only one sale of a work on canvas has ever been recorded, in 1998. The painting, executed in natural earth pigments, charcoal and pencil, was a gift from the artist to Mrs. G.M. Davies in 1895. It temporarily set his record price at auction when sold for $74,000 against a pre-sale estimate of $30,000-50,000. Over the following decade only two other works transcended this result. When this lone work on linen was finally re-offered in 2009, it created a new record at a stratospheric $504,000. The record stood until 2016, when a work on paper, fresh to the market, was offered for sale by Amina and Franco Bellgiorno-Nettis through Bonhams. Ceremony,1897 carried a pre-sale estimate of $180,000-250,000 but by the time the dust had settled it was hammered down for $512,400 including buyer's premium. It should be noted that not all of Barak’s works have had success in the secondary market, for various reasons. In 2005 a decorated throwing boomerang with a high estimate of $1,500 failed to sell. All other unsold works came to auction prior to 1990. Two watercolours seem to have been overestimated at $15,000-18,000 at that time. The recent prominence afforded this artist a reassessment of his contribution to Australian art through a major exhibition and catalogue produced by the National Gallery of Victoria. It led to spectacular sales at auction. In 2009, William Barak leapt to 7th place on the list of the most important Aboriginal artists of all time, yet his works rarely appear for sale. In fact, not a single work appeared at auction between 2009, when his former record was set, and 2016 when it was broken. Expect works by this artist to generate a flurry of attention from informed collectors whenever they appear for sale, and his record price to leap when anything of real quality appears 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