JANANGOO BUTCHER CHEREL
JANANGOO BUTCHER CHEREL
18 - 28 September, 2024
A collection of works by Janangoo Butcher Cherel presented by Aboriginal & Pacific Art.
Front cover image: Janangoo Butcher Cherel, Girndi, 2007. #639/07, Acrylic Gouache on cotton rag, 56 x 76 cm (framed)
Girndi #537/07
Synthetic polymer paint on Velin Arches paper
57 x 76 cm (Framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Synthetic polymer paint on Velin Arches paper 57 x 77 cm (Framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Gooji #782/05
“Everyday I do this work, with my eye and my hand and my heart.”
- Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Synthetic polymer paint on Velin Arches paper
57 x 76 cm (Framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel Girndi #639/07
Butcher joined Mangkaja Arts in the early 1990s, worked closely with the founding art coordinator Karen Dayman and was introduced to Arches paper, a medium ideally suited to his artistic practice which serves to distinguish Mangkaja work of the 1990s from that of other Kimberley and Western Desert art centres. Butcher’s first solo exhibition at Birukmarri Gallery, Perth in 1992 revealed the artist’s fluent mastery of the medium of paper and a singular preoccupation with the formal properties of colour and shape. Also extraordinary is his abiding concern with the question of whether or not he is a good painter as revealed in his 1992 work purchased by the NGV entitled Joonany garra mi yoodila which translates as ‘If I am doing it right, am I a good painter or not?”
- Judith Ryan, 2009
Girndi
#643/07
Synthetic polymer paint on Velin Arches paper 38 x 56 cm (Framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
“I was thinking with my brains and my eyes until the story was right.”
- Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Untitled #108/91
Acrylic on canvas
45.5 x 35.5 cm
Butcher’s iconography is based on his precise observation of country and its minutiae of natural forms. Individual works render special particular things vividly observed in nature such as ripe bush plums, boab nuts, patterns in the mud after the floodwater has receded, ripples made on water by wind and marks made in the sand by beetles. His interest in the formal repetitiom of tiny details as if viewed under a microscope echoes the elaborate tooling of wunda shields, spear throwers and pearl shell pendants from the Kimberley region.
- Judith Ryan, 2009
76 x 56 cm (Framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Dilly Bag #283/01
Acrylic on paper
Butcher’s iconography is based on his precise observation of country and its minutiae of natural forms. Individual works render special particular things vividly observed in nature such as ripe bush plums, boab nuts, patterns in the mud after the floodwater has receded, ripples made on water by wind and marks made in the sand by beetles. His interest in the formal repetitiom of tiny details as if viewed under a microscope echoes the elaborate tooling of wunda shields, spear throwers and pearl shell pendants from the Kimberley region.
- Judith Ryan, 2009
Janangoo Butcher Cherel Girndi #735/08
Acrylic on paper
56 x 76 cm
Like the majority of his generation his life has been enriched by an oral history of country and there are narrative references in his work. “These paintings are about my life,” he will tell you.
But Janangoo is not just telling stories: he is concerned with the process of painting. Perhaps it is this fact that places him firmly in the broader contemporary realm.
Ultimately, Butcher Cherel is the consummate observer and his paintings the evidence of a labour of love; of thought and of feeling.
- Mandi McGuire, 2007
Synthetic polymer paint on Velin Arches paper 56 x 76 cm (Framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel Rain #727/08
Each painting on a clean sheet of paper or canvas is as Butcher states ‘a new story [from me] not out of a book’, from mind, heart, hand and eye, a clear mental picture made actual in paint.
- Judith Ryan, 2009
#624/06
Atelier acrylic on 250gsm velin arches paper
52 x 75 cm (framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Ngawaya
Butcher is an artist’s artist who eschews the notion of painting to a formula or revisiting previous successes. Rather he chases after new ideas, colours and designs, ensuring that no two paintings are exactly alike. His works are often intimate in scale and tissue from a Blakean ability to sense and see ‘a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower’ and to translate these perceptions of country into sublime works of art that are a microcosm of the universe.
- Judith Ryan, 2009
Edition 29/30
Linocut
108 x 46 cm (print size)
135 x 74 cm (framed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
Imannara Mayyi, 2000
Atelier acrylic on 250gsm velin arches paper
52 x 75 cm (unframed)
Janangoo Butcher Cherel Narda #173-08
I have vivid memories of the 1999 solo show of Butcher Cherel held at Aboriginal & Pacific Art in the Dymocks building. Upon receiving the works from Mangkaja Arts, I remember being greatly moved by his refreshing and unique style which is anchored in his understanding of tradition and his observation of the natural world. My admiration for his work was instant and I always eagerly anticipated each successive exhibtion up until our final solo show of his in 2009.
What is evident in this exhibition is that, while the cultural elements of Butcher’s work remained unchanging, each painting is startlingly individual.
- Gabriella Roy Director of Aboriginal & Pacific Art Gallery
Butcher Cherel Janangoo was born around 1920 at Jalnganjoowa. This is near the original homestead on one of the longest established cattle stations in the Kimberley, Fossil Downs.
Later in life he moved to FitzroyCrossing town site.
His mother Kija and his father Gooniyandi. He spoke both languages as well as some Walmajarri and Bunuba. Both his parents worked on the station in and around the homestead and he recalled being taken out bush for walkabout and at law time. With the two of them working on the station, it follows that Butcher also spent most of his working life on Fossil Downs Station. As a stockman he worked cattle And droving from Fitzroy Crossing to Derby and Broome. This time was hard as he stated, “real hard”.
Butcher was a key elder of the Gooniyandi language group and was instrumental in the retention of law ceremony at Muludja Community. He saw Aboriginal Law and language as fundamentally important and felt uneasy that young people did not have this tradition to refer to as they had not been educated as he was.
Butcher’s works provide glimpses of his cultural physical environment. As he stated, “with my eyes, my heart and with my brain I am thinking. When I go to sleep night time, I might talk to myself ‘ah, I might do (paint) that one tomorrow,’ not dreaming; I think about what to do next.”
SOLO EXHIBITONS
2009
Gooni Ngarraggi (My Dreamings)
Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney
2008
Yanoonggo (Fresh/New) Artplace, Melbourne
2008
Janangoo Butcher Cherel Raft Artspace, Darwin
2008
Imanara; Gooniyandi Gooniyandi
Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney
2006
Mirra Doorloo Marla (Head, Heart, Hands) Artplace, Melbourne
2006
Ngarrangkarni
Raft Artspace, Darwin
2006
Thinking Feeling Dancing
Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney
2005
Imanara Artplace, Perth
2004
Imanara Country
Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney
2004
Maiyalnga Raft Artspace, Darwin
2003
Imanara Artplace, Perth
2003
Imanara Country
Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney
SOLO
2002
Imanara
Raft Artspace, Darwin
2001
Janangoo-Imanara-Gooniyandi Artplace, Perth
2000
Imanara Country Artplace, Perth
1999
Janangoo Butcher Cherel Aboriginal & Pacific Art, Sydney
1999
Imanara: Big Country Festival of Perth Exhibition Artplace Gallery, Perth
1998
Gamba Malami Dagoola Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
1997
Joonany garra mi yoodila I put it good way Artplace, Perth
1996
Butcher Cherel Janangoo Durack Gallery, Broome
1993
Parntapi Bilgna Artplace Gallery, Perth
1992
Butcher Cherel Janangoo Gooniyandi Kija Birukmarri Gallery, Fremantle
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2012
Mangkaja Arts 21 Year Anniversary
Wirrinyiya ngaragngarag birra ngamoo ngamoo Tandanya, Adelaide, SA
2007
Cross Currents – Focus on Contemporary Australian Art Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2006
Clemenger Contemporary Art Award
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2004
This is Still My Country…10years on Perth Interna��onal Arts Fes��val Artplace, Perth
2003
Jumu, Jiwari and Wirrkuja Cullity Gallery UWA Perth
2001
Mangkaja Arts, Ten Years Anniversary Tandanya
2000
Imanara Series/Kerry Stokes Collection Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
1999
Story Boards Ceramic tiles from the Kimberley Fremantle Art Centre, Fremantle
1996-97
Heritage Commission Art Award Old Parliament House, Canberra
1995
Mangkaja: Old Mangkaja New Prints Australlian Print Workshop
1994
Ngajakura Ngurrara Minyarti, this is my country Festival of Perth Exhibtion/Artplace, Perth
1993
Images of Power; Aboriginal Art from the Kimberley National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne AWARDS
1993
Finalist RAKA Award, Melbourne University
1994 & 2005
Recognised as one of Western Australia’s State Living Treasures
COLLECTIONS
National Gallery of Victoria
Aboriginal Affairs Department, Perth
Holmes A Court Collection
Artbank, Sydney
Art Gallery of Western Australia
University of Western Australia
Curtin University, Perth
National Gallery of Australia
Queensland Art Gallery
University of Technology Collection, Sydney
Janangoo Butcher Cherel
A collection of works by Janangoo Butcher Cherel presented by Aboriginal & Pacific Art gallery.
18 - 28 September, 2024
Aboriginal & Pacific Art, 1/24 Wellington Street, Waterloo, NSW, 2017 Australia
Ph: +61 2 9699 2211
E: info@aboriginalpacificart.com.au
W: www.aboriginalpacificart.com.au
All images and text copyright the Artists and the community, Mangkaja Arts, Fitzroy Crossing, Western Australia.