Past Exhibition

Desert Dots II  Exhibition  |  13 Apr - 9 Jun 2017

The Story

It is told, that in the Dreamtime winds blew from all directions carrying the seed of a sweet black berry over Ahalpere land. The first conkerberry then grew, bore fruit and dropped more seeds. Winds blew these seeds all over the Dreaming lands.  
 
The conkerberry is a sweet and nutritious black berry that can be eaten straight off the tree, or collected in bulk when dry and fallen, and reconstituted in water. 
 
The conkerberries grow on a a tangled, spiny tree (or shrub) that bares medicinal properties, and this is also important in the story as well. The orange inner bark from the roots can be soaked in water and the resultant solutions used as a medicinal wash that is particularly favoured for skin and eye conditions.  

The Artists

Pictured from left: Polly Ngale, Kathleen Ngale and Elizabeth Mpetyane

Polly Ngale is considered to be one of the most accomplished painters to have come from Utopia. Her paintings often exude a warmth generated by a rich palette of earthy colours, and are borne from traditional knowledge of the subject matter, of spiritual ties, ceremonial connection and personal responsibility. 

Polly's sisterKathleen Ngale paints in a similar dotting style. Early on Kathleen's paintings were distinguishable by the all over white dotting that was layered upon layer, creating different dimensions with the consistency of the paint and the resultant shades. In recent years magenta has become a featured colour in her artworks, often mixed with red ochre, and combined with white dotting that creates a colour scape on the canvas most closely representing the conkerberry being swept across the dreaming lands. 

Polly and Kathleen both have custodianship of the Conkerberry Story and are responsible for educating younger generations. It is no coincidence then that so many people from their community paint this story.

Elizabeth Mpetyane, Kathleen Ngale's daughter, is one of this next generation. She has become a fine dot artist, preferring to paint the Conkerberry story with individual dots.

Getting up close to her artworks, you see dots in different colours surrounded by smaller white dots that fill the gaps on the canvas. The different consistency of application creates a disproportion in the dotting that gives these paintings a flickering, starry night sky quality. 

Likewise, the late Glady Kemarre was known as a fine dot artist, painting individual dots to represent the Conkerberry story. During her career, Glady painted a number of different stories, but none more so than the Conkerberry. Sometimes her canvases would be completely covered in small dots. Othertimes, globules of dots were surrounded with smaller dots.

The Technique

Dots are generally applied with one of two instruments in Aboriginal art. For a long time,bamboo satay sticks were the norm and still are predominately used today. The larger flat end is commonly used for single application of dots, whereas the sharp end is used to create even finer dots. In the early 00's, ink bottles became quite popular amongst Utopia artists where these small plastic bottles are filled up with acrylic paint and then squeezed out through different sized nibs to create the same effect.

The dump dump style, coined when Emily Kame Kngwarreye was painting in the 1990's, is a superimposed dotting technique used by artists such as Polly and Kathleen Ngale. Different sized brushes are 'dumped' into the paint and then transfer it onto the canvas in quick successions of dotting. 

Neither of the artists in this exhibition speak much English or travel outside of their homeland much, and painting is a means to speak to the world outside of Utopia and share this part of them with us. They paint for the love of painting and teaching. Painting is a part of their life now and is often a community activity; a way for them to connect on their Dreaming and share with others. 

EXHIBITION ARTWORKS

Exhibition artworks are no longer available. Please browse our collections to view all current paintings.