Without the written word to pass on these laws, the Aboriginal people communicated them through song, ceremony and oral tradition. Every feature of the land itself, from the loftiest mountain to the tiniest honey-ant, served as evidence of the ancestor's travels. The creation stories were traditionally executed as rock art, using ochre, clays and charcoal. Or the same materials were used to decorate the body during ceremonies, and to adorn weapons, shields, and sacred objects.

During the third quarter of the 20th Century the people of the Pintupi, Warlpiri, Anmatjira Aranda and Loritja nations, who had been displaced by Western settlement, were forcibly brought together in the government ration-station at Papunya. Papunya is about 240 km North West of Alice Springs. Some of the men were ex-stockmen, whilst others had never seen a white man.

In early 1971, the late Geoff Bardon took up the post of art teacher at Papunya. He encouraged traditional artists to develop a new and distinctive art form that today has worldwide recognition. The men initially began brushing onto rough masonite boards reproducing versions of the designs they knew as secretive law-men. The iconography represented ceremonial body painting, or illustrations drawn with fingers in the sand while telling stories and passing on knowledge of the dreaming.

Bardon gave them earth colours of yellow, black and red and when paint was in short supply they used ground earth pigments. Their appetite to paint grew enormously. Bardon later explained, “From the very first there was a tonal boldness and assurance in the completed paintings because of a free directness among the painters……some were exquisitely sensitive….nothing would stop them from their painting.” *1. p 22 “The Men’s Story” in Papunya. A place Made After the Story. Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon. 2004

Their Country, an exhibition of major paintings by Willy Tjungurrayi, George Ward Tjungurrayi and Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, explores and contrasts the distinctive and highly individual styles and unique interpretations of the dreamings of these three senior Western Desert artists.

Their Country opens at Barrack Gallery on Thursday 16th February and continues until Friday 3rd March.

Brenda Colahan

Media View

Of paint and posession

The success of the [Papunya Tula Art] movement is not confined to a small group of artists throughout the Central and Western deserts, but has had a big bang effect on other forms of Aboriginal art made in widely different contexts. As a result of their brilliant contribution, Aboriginal art in all its diversity has moved from the periphery to the forefront of contemporary art practice in Australia.

The best Aboriginal works are no longer trapped in an ethnographic category but possess a unique aesthetic aura born of truth. Rather than appearing as a tokenistic and marginalised inclusion within post-1788 Australian art, it is time to give due recognition to the art tradition that long predates it.

Judith Ryan, The Australian, February 7, 2006.
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Aboriginal Art - The alternative asset class

According to Melbourne tax accountant and art collector Arthur Roe, "High quality Indigenous art with sound provenance should not be ignored as an alternative asset class within any investment portfolio.”

In this article Brenda Colahan highlights four key points to guide the process of sourcing and selecting Indigenous art.

Brenda Colahan.
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Prolific Australian trio moves up the auction charts

“Big spending on three artists popular with new buyers promises new life for the Australian art market."

"[David] Boyd's brightly coloured acrylic paintings of children by ponds, often flying kites, were among the leading high flyers of the Australian art market."

Artprice.com, November 2005

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Appreciative values

"The strongest segment of the market is late-modern and contemporary - the segment that now forms the core of most corporate collections. "

"The Australian artist whose price has shown the greatest appreciation in the saleroom this decade is Tim Maguire.  In 2001, the top price paid for a Maguire at auction was $20,000; in 2003 his price soared to $245,575. "

John Kavanagh, BRW, December 15-21, 2005.
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Art for art's sake

"The focus of almost every corporate collection these days is contemporary art."

"Other companies like to be identified with helping the careers of emerging artists because it sends a signal to junior staff members that they are interested in developing talent."

"We went for contemporary Australian art because it reflected the company, " Beaumont [Macquarie Bank] says.  "Macquarie's collection has increased in value considerably."

John Kavanagh, BRW, December 15-21, 2005.
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Top Performers

These Australian artists are currently amongst the markets most
sought after.  Art Equity has sold works by all the artists listed and for some, is a representative gallery in NSW. 

Due to the relative inactivity of the art market during the summer holiday period, there are no outstanding individual performances to report this month. This section focuses on the Aboriginal artists featuring in Their Country on February 16.

• Willy Tjungurrayi

  Willy Tjungurrayi was born at Patjantja, south west of Lake Mackay around 1930.  In the 1980’s Willy emerged as one of the senior Pintupi painters. He paints stories linked to the Tingari Song Cycles relating to these places. The artist's senior position in his community entitles him to paint the most significant and secret parts of the Tingari stories, many of which cannot be revealed to the uninitiated.
  All the works on offer refer to the “Tali” or sand hills which surround the land where Willy comes from, and where the Tingari cycles take place.  Willy Tjungurrayi's work is widely collected, most notably by the national Gallery of Australia, The Art Gallery of NSW, the Victorian Arts Centre and the Holmes à Court collection.  His record auction price was achieved at Sotheby's July 2005 auction for Hail-Storm at Kaakuratintja 2002 which sold for $59,250.

• Ronnie Tjampitjinpa
  Ronnie was born around Muyinnga in around 1943 and started painting in 1971 as a founding member of Papunya painters. He moved with his family to Kintore in the early 80s, after the establishment of the Pintupi township in 1981, and later became Chairman of the Kintore Outstations Council. After a break of several years he resumed painting, and has since emerged as one of the masters of desert art. By the late 1980s and early 90s his distinctive graphic style attracted considerable attention. His paintings are remarkable for their vigour, bold designs and sense of profound spirituality.
  Ronnie has participated in many group exhibitions, and in 1988 won the Alice Springs Art Prize. He was included in the 'Australian Perspecta 1993' at the Art Gallery of NSW. Ronnie's many successes have won him widespread acclaim. His work has been shown in international exhibitions many times and he is represented in major public and private collections.

• George Ward Tjungurrayi
  Born circa 1945 George Ward began painting for the Papunya Tula Artists around 1976, quickly becoming a senior painter from the region and is today one of the most highly regarded indigenous painters still working.

  George Ward paints the Tingari Cycles- the most secret dreaming about Aboriginal mythology. George’s topographical depictions of the landscape and its features are created using a strong palette of reds, oranges, greens and browns.

  In 2004 he won the Wynne Prize for Landscape Painting, Australia’s most prestigious landscape art award. This critical recognition has underpinned his influence not only on indigenous imagery and culture but on Australian culture more widely.

  He is in the most prestigious of indigenous art collections both in Australia and overseas, including major galleries such as the National Gallery of Victoria.

•  Jeff Makin
  Jeff Makin will be exhibiting a body of drawings at the Stonington Stables Museum of Art, Deakin University in Melbourne from February 22 until April 1, 2006.  The collection of 64 drawings created between 1978 and 2006 cover four main genres; still life, portrait, landscape and life drawing.  The drawings have never been seen outside the artists studio.  Makin comments in the catalog that "Drawing has occupied a primary role in  my art practice for as long as I can remember...usually as a first visualisation of idea, or as a discipline in preparation for painting, or simply as an end in itself."  The limited edition catalog is available from Art Equity at a cost of $40 per copy. 

MARKET WATCH

Australian art auction sales hit record levels in 2005.  A total of $93.2 million was achieved for the year, an increase of 8.1% over the 2004 result.  This continues the rising trend of the Australian art market and mirrors the movement of the international market.  According to Artprice.com, the international art market achieved recording breaking results.  It doubled estimates with turnover exceeding USD 4 billion versus USD 3.6 billion the previous year.

The buoyant auction results in Australia were helped by the sale of The Foster's Group collection by Sotheby's which grossed $13.3 million which saw new record sale prices for 10 artists.  Arthur Streeton's Sunlight Sweet, Coogee achieved $1.853 million, the highest price for the year and the second highest sale price for a work sold in Australia.  Sotheby's was the leading auction house with $33.08 in sales. (source:aasd.com.au). 

14% of total auction sales were for works by Aboriginal artists.

As tradition dictates, the secondary art market was virtually inactive during the January 2006 holiday period.  Our focus in this edition of Art Insight looks towards the March sales with once again keen interest throughout Australia towards the performance of top end Indigenous works.

SMART ART

The February Smart Art offer includes two outstanding editioned prints by Camilla Connolly.  Hot off the press and exclusive to Art Equity is Another Prodigal Son, Camillas latest work printed in collaboration with Master Printmaker, Paul Smith.  This collagraph was created on the back of the near sell out success of her first collagraph, Gangster Girl Wedding Day released by Art Equity in June 2005.  Art Equity has secured the remaining Gangster Girl Wedding Day collagraph prints, enabling us to offer Art Insight subscribers both collagraphs as a unique pair.

To view the works and read more about Camilla Connolly, click on the llink below.