Indigenous Australians constitute the longest surviving civilization in human history for more than 60,000 years. While affinities may be perceived between remote Indigenous Australian art and other modern art forms, the individual practices that are developed in relative isolation stem from the oldest continuous art traditions in the world.
This exhibition is designed to introduce the local audience for the first time to rare works by some of Australia’s most renowned Indigenous artists from remote regions of the continent. The intergenerational selection includes the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Makinti Napanangka, and Bill “Whiskey” Tjapaltjarri, and living artists such as Yukultji Napangati, George Tjungurrayi, and Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri.
After the forced displacement of the Pintupi, Luritja, Warlpiri, and Arrernte people to the Papunya Tula settlement in the Northern Territory from the 1950s, tribal members began collaborating on site-specific paintings. Deriving from ancient rituals of body decoration, sand drawing, tree bark carving, and ceremonial dance, these collective expressions eventually evolved into autonomous works on canvas by individual artists. To protect the rituals of their culture from disruptive forces, the artists veiled their sacred iconography and knowledge in dynamic abstract patterns, decipherable only by initiates. Their intense focus and rhythmic mark making produced compelling works of great optical complexity—pointillist constellations, free-flowing linear formations, concentric swells, topological geometric fields, and hypnotic ripples—representing the Dreaming, or worldview that provides Indigenous Australians with an ordered sense of reality, a framework for understanding and interpreting the world and the place of humans in that world. This priceless knowledge of human life includes survival strategies, ancestral histories, myths of the earth, and the cosmos.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye, affectionately known as “Emily,” was a revered elder of the Central Utopia community and one of the most celebrated artists in Australian history. Throughout the brief ten-year span before her death, she painted freely and prolifically, moving confidently through an astonishing range of style and expression. Anooralya—My Story (1991) is a key example of Emily’s early “fish-eye” pointillist technique, where she engaged her entire body in making countless individual marks on canvas. In this painting, rarely seen in the last thirty years, these delicate dots coalesce into grainy pools and sinuous streams, recalling at once the macrocosmic systems of the galaxy and the microcosmic root structures of the wild yam, a symbol of fertility and Emily’s Dreaming. When asked to describe her inspirations, Emily’s response was consistent: “It’s everything.” In other words, each painting represents her entire culture, encapsulating her intimate relationship with “Country,” the physical land and the spirits that inhabit it, as well as the people and their traditions.
Makinti Napanangka’s paintings commemorate Pintupi women’s performative and ritual traditions. The flowing stripes of paint in amber and violet recall the nyimparra (hand-spun string skirts made from human hair) and the rich natural ochres with which the women adorn their bodies during tribal dance ceremonies. Makinti’s pulsating compositions draw from Pintupi epics, especially the travels of Kungka Kutjarra (women ancestors) who created the rocks at Lupulnga. In the featured works, expressive lines of color evoke the energetic movements of the hair-string skirt dances and the fleeting desert mirages that glaze the hot earth where they are performed.
For generations, the land and the many stories it contains have inspired the creativity of the Desert Painters as seen in the dizzying labyrinths and energetic fields by George Tjungurrayi and Warlimpirringa Tjapaltjarri. Transmuting into paint on canvas the customary mark-making techniques with which they decorated their tools and their bodies with ceremonial designs, these Pintupi men trace sinuous lines into charged and tensile optical compositions. While Tjungurrayi’s paintings are generally flame-colored to evoke sun and earth, Tjapaltjarri uses restrained gray pigments to evoke the sensations of cool desert nights from Tingari epics. Many of Tjapaltjarri’s paintings evoke Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay), a vast saltwater flat visited after dark by ancestral women to perform sacred celestial rituals. Yukultji Napangati, sister to Warlimpirringa, was also born near Wilkinkarra at a water hole called Murruwa. In her highly refined paintings, she layers thousands of tone-on-tone vertical strokes to generate oscillating fields of dark and light sensation that recall the shimmering grasslands, the fractal patterns of sand dunes, and the textures of animal pelts from her Country.
Bill “Whiskey” Tjapaltjarri, a Pitjantjatjara artist from the Central Desert, used a unique cartographic approach to paint works of sweeping scale that are reminiscent of drawings his elders once made with crayon on butcher’s paper to map the vast lands of their Country for white anthropological interlocutors. Two of Whiskey’s largest paintings, both titled Country and Rockholes near the Olgas (2006) depict the areas around Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Mount Olga. The subtle palette of these works, which ranges from deep aqueous blues to vivid corals, and their complex contouring, reimagine the striking hues and topography of the geological phenomena that surrounded Whiskey throughout his life.
The Artists: Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Makinti Napanangka, Yukultji Napangati, George Tjungurrayi, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Bill “Whiskey” Tjapaltjarri
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澳洲原住民的歷史可以追溯至超過6萬年前，是人類歷史上最古老的現存文明。雖然遙遠的澳洲原住民藝術與其他現代藝術形式不乏相似之處，但在相對與世隔絕的情況下發展而成的獨特藝術，卻源自世上最古老、流傳至今的藝術傳統。
展覽旨在向本地觀眾首次介紹部分來自澳洲偏遠地區的著名原住民藝術家的珍罕作品，並精心挑選兩代藝術家的佳作，包括已故的埃米莉·凱米·寧瓦瑞（Emily Kame Kngwarreye）、馬堅蒂·娜巴南卡（Makinti Napanangka）及比爾·韋斯奇·賈帕加利（Bill “Whiskey” Tjapaltjarri），以及玉柯媞·納潘加蒂（Yukultji Napangati）、喬治·通古拉里（George Tjungurrayi）及沃林賓亞·賈帕加利（Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri）等在世藝術家。
賓土比（Pintupi）、路里加（Luritja）、瓦爾皮瑞（Warlpiri）和阿倫特（Arrernte）族人在1950年代被迫遷移到北領地的帕潘亞圖拉（Papunya Tula）定居後，部落成員便開始集體創作場地特定的畫作。這些集體藝術創作參考人體裝飾、沙畫、樹皮雕刻及典禮舞蹈等古老儀式，最終演變成個別藝術家利用畫布創作的獨立作品。為了守護原住民文化獨有的儀式，藝術家利用多變的抽象圖案隱藏神聖的標誌和智慧，只有原住民才能解讀。作品展現的專注和節奏鮮明的筆觸，創造出視覺效果極其複雜的迷人作品，包括點彩法星座圖、自由流動的線性形態、不斷擴大的同心圖案、拓撲幾何空間和令人目眩的波紋，代表原住民的「夢幻時代」（Dreaming）或世界觀，為澳洲原住民營造一種有序的現實感，構成一個讓他們理解和解讀世界及人類在世上位置的框架。這些有關人類生命的珍貴知識包括求生策略、祖宗歷史、地球的神話及宇宙。
埃米莉·凱米·寧瓦瑞是中部烏托邦地區一位備受尊敬的長老，也是澳洲史上最享負盛名的藝術家之一。在她離世前的短短十年裡，她無拘無束地完成大量畫作，肆意探索數之不盡的風格和表達方式。《Anooralya─我的故事》（Anooralya–My Story，1991年作）是埃米莉以早期「魚眼」點彩法技巧創作的代表作，她利用整個身體投入創作，在畫布上畫出無數獨特的印記。在這幅過去30年鮮有亮相的作品中，精緻的圓點匯聚成帶有波紋的水池和蜿蜒溪流，令人聯想到銀河系的宏觀宇宙體系，以及野生長薯根部結構中的微觀世界，而野生長薯象徵豐饒肥沃和埃米莉的夢幻時代。當被問及她的靈感來源時，埃米莉的回答總是：「所有東西。」換言之，每幅作品也代表她所屬的整個文化，涵蓋她與「國土」（有形的土地及在當中居住的神明）的親密關係，還有人民與傳統之間的關係。
馬堅蒂·娜巴南卡的繪畫頌揚賓土比族婦女的表演和儀式傳統。自由流淌的琥珀色和紫色顏料令人想起以頭髮手工織成的裙「Nyimparra」，以及部落婦女在傳統儀式上跳舞時裝飾身體的天然赭色。馬堅蒂充滿力量的構圖取材自賓土比族的神話，特別是在Lupulnga創造巨石的女祖先Kungka Kutjarra的旅程。在是次展出的作品中，富有表現力的色彩線條令人想起髮絲線裙在舞者跳舞時的律動，還有表演現場炙熱土地出現的海市蜃樓。
世代以來，這片土地和當中的故事為沙漠畫家帶來不少創作靈感，啟發喬治·通古拉里及沃林賓亞·賈帕加利創作出令人目眩的迷宮和力量澎湃的構圖。這些賓土比族男子將傳統的繪畫技巧（為工具和身體畫上配合儀式的圖案）融入畫布上的顏料，以起伏有致的線條勾勒出充滿張力的視覺構圖。通古拉里的畫作通常展現火焰般的色彩，令人想起太陽和大地，而賈帕加利則使用含蓄內斂的灰色顏料，呼應廷加里（Tingari）神話裡清爽的沙漠夜晚。賈帕加利的多幅畫作也令人想到麥凱湖（Wilkinkarra），女祖先會在入夜後到這個巨大的鹽湖進行神聖的膜拜儀式。玉柯媞·納潘加蒂是賈帕加利的妹妹，她也在麥凱湖附近一個名為Murruwa的水泉出生。在她精緻複雜的畫作裡，她將數以千計的同色系垂直筆觸層層堆疊，營造起伏的光影效果，猶如閃閃生光的草原、不規則的沙丘圖案，以及來自其國土動物毛皮的紋理。
比爾·韋斯奇·賈帕加利是來自中部沙漠地區的皮詹加加拉族（Pitjantjatjara）藝術家，以獨特的製圖技巧繪畫規模宏大的作品，猶如其先祖曾經以蠟筆在包肉的紙上為白人人類學代表繪製的遼闊國土地圖。比爾兩幅最大型的作品均稱為《國土和奧爾加斯附近的岩洞》（Country and Rockholes near the Olgas，2006年作），描繪烏魯魯（又稱艾爾斯岩）和卡塔丘塔附近的區域。從深邃的海藍色到鮮豔的珊瑚色，這些作品的用色細膩，加上複雜的線條輪廓，重新演繹比爾人生中常見的奪目地質現象色彩和獨特地形。
藝術家簡介：埃米莉·凱米·寧瓦瑞, 馬堅蒂·娜巴南卡, 玉柯媞·納潘加蒂, 喬治·通古拉里, 沃林賓亞·賈帕加利, 比爾·韋斯奇·賈帕加利
DESERT PAINTERS OF AUSTRALIA: Two Generations
澳洲沙漠原住民藝術家: 兩世代
Exhibition Dates: September 24 – November 7, 2020
開幕晚會：9月24日（星期四）晚間5時至8時
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 24, 5pm – 8pm
Gagosian
2020年9月24日至11月7日
7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong
香港中環畢打街12號畢打行7樓
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