About Artist:
WE SPECIALISE IN PAINTINGS BY KUDDITJI KNGWARREYE. PLEASE CALL FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR IMAGES OR TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO VIEW THE WORKS.

Born around 1928, Kudditji Kngwarreye, the younger half-brother of the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, had a traditional bush upbringing in the Utopia region before starting a long career as a stockman and mine worker. An Anmatyerre elder and custodian of many important Dreamings, Kudditji was inspired by the work coming out of Papunya to paint his own Dreamings, telling of the travels and law of the Emu ancestors.

Starting in 1986, his precisely dotted Emu Dreaming paintings, featuring ranks of coloured roundels and other 'hieroglyphs' on a chequered or dotted background, became sought after by major galleries in the Northern Territory. Breaking out of this style after some years, Kudditji's work became far looser and more 'abstract', and some commentators have seen a strong similarity with his sister Emily's work - but it is not clear who was the first to set out on this path. The demand for his earlier, detailed style, however, moved Kudditji to return to it, and it was only in 2003 that he began to exhibit the extraordinary, saturated colour paintings that have seen his reputation grow nationally and internationally.

Kudditji is represented in major international collections. His two dimensional spatial constructions seem to refer to Rothko and modernists of the twentieth century. The paintings are documents of an intuitive interplay between artist and the space of a canvas.

The new paintings, in fact, have several styles, and Kudditji has explored size of canvas as well as form in these intense, beautiful works. A sense of immense space can be felt in the the paintings, where massive blocks of stippled colour are laid alongside each other, sometimes using only two colours, while in other paintings a quilt of juxtaposed colours produces a landscape effect.

Perhaps most astounding of all, Kudditji's works capture light in a unique way - this may have led to his work being compared with that of the French Impressionists. In certain of his paintings, the brushwork is such that colours change significantly with the light. The work in fact, changes throughout the day and by night under different lighting conditions. A subtle change in the light outside will cause different colours to light up while others recede. Specks of brilliant orange, violet, blue, yellow, all seem to take their turns to dance in front of the canvas as conditions change.

Put together, these aspects of Kudditji's work make him indeed a masterly painter. His compositions and their meaning, his painterliness and most of all, his extraordinary use of colour, make him an artist to revere. Getting to know one of his works is indeed a journey, as each day it yields up greater depth, meaning, and nuance of astonishing colour.


Exhibitions:
2010: Kudditji Kngwarreye, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2009: Kudditji Kngwarreye: Pastels, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2008: '30 Emu Dreamings' Kate Owen Gallery, Rozelle, Sydney
2005: Waterhole Aboriginal Art, Danks Street, Sydney
2005: New Paintings Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
2005: Colours in Country, Art Mob, Hobart, Tasmania
2004: Waterhole Aboriginal Art, Sofitel Wentworth Exhibition, Sydney
2004: My Country, New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
2004: My Country, Japingka Gallery Perth
2003: New Paintings Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
1992: Tjukurrpa, Museum fur Volkerkunde, Basel
1991: Central Australian Art and Craft Exhibition, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs
1990: Art Dock, Contemporary Art from Australia, Noumea, New Caledonia

Collections:
Hank Ebes Collection, Melbourne
Araluen Art Center, Alice Springs