Tim Klingender Fine Art is proud to present the exhibition curated by the late Tim Klingender at Sydney Contemporary 2023. We look forward to welcoming you to Stand F11
“In 1999 he completed an entirely white painting: a white river banked by two panels of white dotting. Without colour or form, it shimmers with implausible depth. The success of these monochromatic paintings (he also experimented with dark blue and black..) in the same way points to another aspect of Boxer’s craft: his technique.’
John Carty, Balgo: Creating Country, UWA Publishing, 2021, p253. (The painting is illustrated on pp.258-9)
Provenance:
Warlayirti Artists, Western Australia, catalogue number 597/99
Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Melbourne Aboriginal Art Sotheby's, London, 21 September 2016, lot 72 The Le Pley Collection, Western Australia.
Exhibition history:
Aborigena: Arte australiana contemporanea, Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, 29 June-26 August 2001. Desert Art, Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 23 February - 23 June 2002. Mythology and Reality, Contemporary Aboriginal Desert Art from the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, The Jerusalem Centre for the Performing Arts, Jerusalem, Israel, 21 October – 19 December 2003.
Mythology & Reality, Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Desert Art From the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2 October 2004 - 30 January 2005.
Boxer Milner Tjampitjin, (c.1935-2009)
Milkwater on Sturt Creek after the Flooding, 1999
Synthetic polymer paint on linen
150 by 75cm
Bears Warlayirti artists Catalogue number 597/99 on the reverse SOLD
Boxer Milner Tjampitjin, (c.1935-2009)
Purkitji, 2002
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
120 by 180cm
Bears Warlayirti artists Catalogue number 383/01 on the reverse SOLD
Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996)
Alhalkere Winter, 1993
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
152.5 by 121cm
Bears artist’s name and Delmore Gallery Catalogue number 93F070 on the reverse
SOLD
Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996)
Untitled (Summer Transition) 1991
Acrylic on canvas
130 by 230cm
Bears artist’s name and Delmore Gallery Catalogue number 1T16 on the reverse SOLD
In Untitled (Summer Transition) the splashes of yellow ochre, viridian, ultramarine and indigo conjure a variegated vision of a lush landscape in Kngwarreye’s country, Alhalkerr, teeming with the remnant fruits and plants of late summer, well after the rains have ceased as the country enters the long phase of dry and cold. Set against a ground of deep hues and rusty red and orange ochres, brush marks appear to weave in and out of the picture plane, floating through space as though carried by the breeze. That Emily Kame Kngwarreye painted Untitled (Summer Transition) in March 1991 at the beginning of the southern autumn suggests she was painting the landscape that surrounded her at the time.
If this homage to her country, protecting and nurturing it through the act of painting it reflects a notion of her identity tied to the land, then the presence of the artist in this landscape is more than implied. The physicality of Kngwarreye’s hand is captured in the arcs of her reach as she sat applying dots of colour to the canvas; it forms a sinuous tracery that belies a critical development the artist’s oeuvre: Untitled (Summer Transition) was painted at a time when Kngwarreye introduced a ‘streamlining’ to her work (Judith Ryan in Isaacs 1998:80-1) where the ‘graphic underlay’ of previous paintings ‘was no longer evident’ leading to the fields of colour pictures that reached their apotheosis in paintings such as Kame, 1991, in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria (illustrated in Isaacs 1998, plate 20, pp. 68-9) and Alhalkere (My Country), 1991, formerly in the collection of the late Ann Lewis AM (see Neale 2008, plate D-22, pp. 136-7).
In his chapter ‘Kngwarreye Woman Abstract Painter’ in Jennifer Isaacs’ 1998 monograph (pp. 33-5), the art historian Terry Smith compares and contrasts Kngwarreye’s paintings with those of the arch-impressionist Claude Monet, specifically to the Nymphéas (waterlily) paintings that hang in the Musée de ’Orangerie in Paris. While comparisons of art from disparate cultures and times may only reveal superficial similarities, Monet offers us play of light on water – what we see are reflections of sky, clouds and plants, not the thing itself. On the other hand, Kngwarreye’s Untitled (Summer Transition) plays on the interaction of light, earth and nourishing plant life. Her painting too may be seen as a reflection although not simply of the elements of nature, but of the ancestral forces that vivify her country.
Wally CaruanaReferences:
Isaacs, J., T. Smith, J. Ryan et al., 1998, Emily Kngwarreye Paintings, Sydney: Craftsman House. Neale, M. et al, 2008, Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Utopia: The genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Osaka: The National Museum of Art.
Provenance:
Painted at Delmore Downs Station for the Delmore Gallery in March 1991 Hogarth Galleries, Sydney Acquired from the above in December 1991, and thence by descent The painting is sold with accompanying Hogarth Galleries’ documentation signed by Helen Hansen on 28/12/1991
Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996)
Untitled (Summer Transition) 1991 - Opposite - detail of work
Anmatyerr artist Angelina Pwerle began painting her celebrated pointillist interpretations of the anwekety (bush plum) Dreaming in mid 1996, in the weeks following Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s death. From the outset, the Bush Plum works were potent, fully formed and emotionally resonant. Many of these early works were laid on a deep and expansive black ground. The paintings were produced for principal agents Rodney Gooch and Delmore Gallery.
In the years that followed, Pwerle worked with an array of colours, many of them bright and vibrant. However the darker works remained a consistent highlight of her oeuvre and from 2010, they once again began to dominate. One of the two Bush Plum works held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, (painted in 2015) is an example of this pared back spare palette.
Bush Plum (2022) was painted by Pwerle on-country at Utopia, where she has lived her entire life. It exudes a palpable energy that belies the meticulous nature of its composition. Pwerle is now 72 years old and completes only a handful of these intricate canvases each year – yet these recent works are as powerful as any she has produced since she began painting on linen in 1988. Describing the artist's recent paintings, curator Anne Marie Brody writes: “Pwerle's works are like the late masterpieces of Mark Rothko or Claude Monet, deep crystallisations at the far frontier of creative endeavour.” 1
1 Anne Marie Brody, Bush Plum Odysseys, in Henry F. Skerritt (ed.) 2016, Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists
Reno: Nevada Museum of Art, Munich: Prestel.
Provenance:
Painted at Camel Camp, Utopia in 2022 for Niagara Galleries
Niagara Galleries, Melbourne Private collection, Sydney
Angeline Pwerle (b.1951)
Bush Plum, 2022
Acrylic on linen
150 by 120cm
Bears Artlore Catalogue number 1-822 on the reverse
$90,000
Ningura Napurrula, (c.1938 - 2013)
Untitled, 2002
Synthetic polymer paint on linen
122 by 107cm
Bears Papunya Tula Catalogue number NN0207243 on the reverse SOLD
Warnpuparta, 1990
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
100 by 76 cm
Bears artist's name, size and Warlayirti Artists Catalogue number 483/90 on the reverse SOLD
The inspiration for this work emerged during a journey Pepai Jangala Carroll took into the far reaches of the Western Desert in April 2017. For Pepai it was a return to the country of his grandmother and father, a tract of desert he had not visited since childhood.
Like many Pintupi people of his generation, Pepai was born at the former ration station of Haasts Bluff. Pepai’s father, a Pintupi man, Henry Paripata Tjampitjinpa and his Pitjantjatjara mother, Nancy (Anpulyura) Napangati, spent time living in Hassts Bluff before moving briefly to Areyonga and then Papunya. For a time Paripata was a dingo scalper and travelled long distances collecting their pelts which he sold to support his growing family. On one such trip in the 1950s Pepai accompanied his father to visit Paripata’s birthplace at Ininti. A few years after this trip came the unexpected death of his mother which resulted in Pepai and his siblings being sent a long distance south to live with relatives at Ernabella. Paripata remained in Papunya but tragically passed a short time later. A devastated Pepai remained at Ernabella and when old enough began work as a carpenter on a nearby sheep station. He married Alison Milyika Carroll and together they raised five children. Pepai worked in a variety of jobs before serving a twentyyear career as the Ernabella Community Constable which he retired from in 2007. Retirement did not sit well, and soon after Pepai took to painting and then ceramics, not surprisingly relying on Paripata’s country as his immediate source of inspiration. Pepai quickly established himself as a stalwart at Ernabella Arts. As his artistic practice flourished so too did a desire to revisit the country he had experienced so fleetingly as a child. With the support of family and friends, Pepai devised a plan to travel to the country far west of Haasts Bluff that fate had taken him away from. Pepai was also determined to connect with senior Pintupi men who he hoped could bridge the personal, social and cultural gap that had persisted since his last visit. As an elderly man enmeshed in a patriarchal society that values knowledge of Country above almost all else, Pepai’s journey into the relative unknown was profoundly brave. It takes a rare human to knowingly position oneself so vulnerable amongst their peers, but such was the measure of this unassuming man.
On the journey westward, he reached the Ilpili region and stopped at Winpirri, well-known for its impressive tunnel like rockhole. Upon a ancient rock-shelf decorated with stunning petroglyphs, Pepai sat in solitude reciting his memories of the area aloud. He was now in Country he may not have remembered, but Country in which he knew he had visited with his father.
Upon arrival at Walungurru (Kintore), 500kms west of Alice Springs, he was warmly greeted by several senior men. Many were inspired by his impassioned quest for knowledge and in awe of the effort it had taken for him to journey so far. Pepai sat solemnly listening to stories of Country. It was during this visit, and his brief moments spent at Winpirri earlier that day, that informed Ilpili 2018.
The following day, Pepai continued his journey to Ininti where an abandoned outstation sits nestled between glorious sandhills that cannon into a nearby escarpment of ancient rock. On arriving Pepai felt a rush of memory and spoke of his family travelling and living in this Country prior to contact:
‘They would all stay here, just the family. They stayed here without anything [bore, power etc.], no house, they stayed at the soakage, this water is the soakage.’
His travels continued to Kiwirrkura where Pepai spent valuable time with his classificatory father Jimmy Brown Tjampitjinpa and then onto the giant salt-lake of Wilkinkarra. Upon arrival Pepai hurried toward its shimmering expanse and revelled in its absorbing presence. Rather than merely observe where he has come to be, Pepai stepped onto a chalky crust of fused salt and sand and began his trek inward. He roamed alone for over an hour, stepping past sulphur encrusted scorpions, frogs, lizards and birds. Soon his dark clad figure was a distant and tiny blemish against a glowing horizon. As the sun began to fade and the colours of the surrounds yellowed and darkened, he returned to camp with no words though a piercing twinkle in his eye. The subsequent body of work inspired by this journey established Pepai Jangala Carroll’s reputation as an illuminating painter and maverick ceramist. His untimely death in 2021 occurred just as his work began to be included in major exhibitions in Australia and internationally. - Luke Scholes
Ilpili, 2018
Acrylic on linen
170 by 180cm
Bears Ernabella Arts Catalogue number 326-18 on the reverse SOLD
Wattie Karruwara produced at least thirty-eight watercolour paintings for John McCaffrey, the American anthropologist. These were delicate paintings of the Kimberley landscapes familiar to Wattie. They were not pictures of a wilderness however; in most cases they are populated with the animals, birds and plants of the region or with the spirit beings inherent within the landscape. Even when topographical features only are depicted they are those with intense symbolism. While John McCaffrey appears to have recorded most of his data on reel-to-reel audio tapes of the period, there is a curious lack of information about the watercolours. It is however apparent from an essay titled 'Wattie Kunmunya; Profile of a Wunambal Eidetic Artist', that McCaffrey held Wattie in great awe. This is perhaps not only out of respect for his artistic abilities but also because of Wattie's life history, one of dislocation, removal and return. McCaffrey saw the elements of a shaman in the man. Wattie was a taciturn man and content within himself to work and exist without involving himself overly in verbal communication. No doubt this was a reflection of his long period away from the Kimberley during which he had little or no chance to communicate in his own language or to his own people. That he had survived such removal and had re-integrated back within the Mowanjum community and his circle of kin, was evidence of his strength of character. This, I feel, impressed McCaffrey who came to look upon Wattie as a spiritual mentor. This respect may have led him to regard many aspects of Wattie’s work and attitude to the creation of areas too personal for general revelation. Even without this data, however, the paintings are exceptional in their own right and must be considered among the highest examples of a genre of art, produced by contemporary indigenous artists, that has been overlooked or ignored totally, for far too long.
Kim Akerman, April 2003
Provenance: (top)
Executed at Mowanjum, North Western Australia
The John McCaffrey Collection, San Francisco, USA
Sotheby's, The John McCaffrey Collection of Kimberley Art, Sydney, 28/07/2003, Lot No. 12 Private Collection
Sotheby's, Aboriginal Art, Sydney, 20/10/2008, Lot No. 271
The Collection of Martin Copley AM
Mossgreen Auctions, The Collection of Martin Copley AM (Art lots only), Melbourne, 22/10/2017, Lot No. 139 The Tim Klingender Collection
Provenance: (bottom)
Executed at Mowanjum, North Western Australia
The John McCaffrey Collection, San Francisco, USA
Sotheby's, Important Australian Art, Sydney, 13/05/2014, Lot No. 55 The Tim Klingender Collection
Wattie Karruwara (c1910 - 1983)
Untitled (Circa 1965)
Watercolour on paper
57 by 76 cm
Bears McCaffrey Catalogue number 12 on the reverse
$26,500
Wattie Karruwara (c1910 - 1983)
Untitled (Circa 1965)
Watercolour on paper
57 by 76 cm
Bears McCaffrey Catalogue number 2 on the reverse
SOLD
Guykuḏa Munuŋgurr is the foremost sculptor of large scale naturalistic 3D works in NE Arnhem. He draws from nature but this can bring him into conflict with Yolŋu law. Everything within the whole Yolŋu cosmos has a specific identity which relates to a particular clan ownership. For example, a crocodile is not just a crocodile, but an ancestor of the Maḏarrpa clan transformed through fire and an embodiment of their essence.
When his representations of powerful totemic beings has been deemed to transgress disciplines he has had to abandon half finished works. His response has been to borrow more widely from non-sacred forms including such fantastic beings as Angels, Werewolves and Mermen.
Within all of these radical new works the central emotion is the joy of manually creating these shapes out of nothing but the bush timber which surrounds his remote homeland and the rocks from the ground. He is thrilled and satisfied by the act of rendering his imagination real. When asked about the deeper meaning of such works his common response is “it’s just art”.
Guykuda Munungurr (b.1966)
Buku Dungulmi, 2021
Natural pigments, wood
28 by 84cm
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre Catalogue number 3734-21
$7,700
Guykuda Munungurr (b.1966)
Mermaid and Merman, 2020 natural pigments and mixed media on wood H170cm (dimensions variable)
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre Catalogue number 4481-21 4296F & 4306A
$38,000
Guykuda Munungurr (b.1966)
Bulatja, 2021
Natural pigments, wood
29 by 78cm
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre Catalogue number 4481-21
$7,700
Guykuda Munungurr (b.1966)
Warrawada – Milk Fish, 2020
Natural pigments, wood
81 by 27cm
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre Catalogue number 2777-20
$7,700
Are We Dead Yet? is part of a long-term artistic documentation of the effects of climate change on our planet, from award-winning Australian photographer Stephen Dupont. Inspired by his young daughter Ava – a climate activist – Dupont’s discussions about environmental issues inevitably end up at the big question: is it possible to save the planet, or have we pushed Mother Nature to the brink of extinction? Through his lens, Dupont has captured the environmental, social and economic tolls, with nature’s colour palette in the aftermath of destruction imbuing the works with a surreal ambiance. His most recent works are from Antarctica.
Antarctica No.1, 2023
From the series, Are We Dead Yet?
320GSM cotton rag art paper. Edition 1/4
105 by 160cm
$11,000 framed
Antarctica No.2, 2023
From the series, Are We Dead Yet?
320GSM cotton rag art paper. Edition 1/4
105 by 160cm
Antarctica No.3, 2023
From the series, Are We Dead Yet?
320GSM cotton rag art paper. Edition 1/4
105 by 160cm
Antarctica No.4, 2023
From the series, Are We Dead Yet?
320GSM cotton rag art paper. Edition 1/4
105 by 160cm
Aftermath Black Summer Bush Fires, Snowy, 2023
From the series, Are We Dead Yet?
320GSM cotton rag art paper. Edition 2/8
105 by 160cm
$9,500 framed
Borderlines; a bit about the process. This work shows a patch reef on the border of the lagoon at Coral Bay, on the Ningaloo Reef. It was drawn underwater in February of 2023 using graphite on 21 separate sheets of drafting film. I use a drawing board which I designed and built when I first began this type of underwater work back in 1995. I have tried a few different designs over the years but have always returned to the original prototype, which I use to this day. A sheet of marine plywood backing a sheet of white perspex surrounded by an aluminium frame to hold down the drafting film. Using scuba gear I take this contraption down to the bottom and kneel on the sand with lots of weights to keep me immobile and draw the reef before me using graphite sticks.
Working from a campsite in the caravan park at Coral Bay, I spent approximately 80 hours underwater over a month to draw Borderlines. I would head out alone each morning in my small aluminium boat, trying to be in the water by around 8am when the sun was high enough to begin drawing and still having enough time to work before the angle of the light had changed too much. Each dive was usually around 3 hours, the limit I can make a tank last but also about the limit of my endurance and ability to concentrate and focus. Some drawings were finished in a single dive, others were more complex and required up to three dives.
Each afternoon back at camp maintenance took up some hours, photo downloads, gear washdown, tank fills and so on. The days drawing was rinsed in fresh water and hung up to dry before the edges were traced onto the next days adjacent drawing sheet to ensure a seamless transition. With whatever time remained in the day I worked on that days drawing, filling in shadows which I indicate by shorthand to save time underwater, adding detail and refining the alignment of sheets.
But this fieldwork was really only the beginning of the process. Back in the studio I continued working on the individual sheets extensively over the following months. The drawings were finally mounted on three separate aluminium composite panels which I built in my garage workshop. To enable the precise placement of the sheets I used heat activated glue spread on the panels and allowed to dry. Meaning the sheets could be cut and placed very accurately before using a warm iron to secure them permanently.
Once the sheets were glued and the panels bolted together and stood vertically I was finally able to see the entire drawing for the first time, until then it had only been possible to work on a section at a time, trying always to hold a mental picture of the entire scene. In fact this was somewhat the process from the very start. Each days diving produced a small life drawing completed, the following day conditions were often very different and the neighbouring drawing was not going to necessarily match the previous one . This could only really be harmonised once the entire drawing was assembled.
Roger Swainston Borderlines, 2023 Opposite page - detail
I have always been fascinated by the diversity and detail of our natural environment, growing up in the bush in Western Australia I was surrounded by it. I can't remember a time I wasn't drawing or painting. After high school a stint on prawn trawlers in the far north, exploring previously unfished areas introduced me to an abundance of new and astounding creatures. Late at night on the back deck I spent hours drawing and marvelling at the multitudes of bizarre crustaceans and other animals brought up in our nets. What were all these strange forms and adaptations? Why such diversity? This lifelong curiosity impelled me to study zoology at the University of Western Australia and then, when I was introduced to scuba diving in my late teens, an epiphany! I had crossed a boundary into another world, a different universe and there I found my direction. I have spent the last 40 years exploring and documenting that world.
The portrayal of a particular animal or a coral reef is a story of possession. I am captivated by my subject, it possesses me. I am driven to capture its form and character, to know it on the deepest level I am able. And once this is done I feel its essence completely, the possession is shared.
Take the process of painting a Rock Lobster for example; holding the Lobster in my hands, sensing its weight, sharpness and articulations, even its briny perfume, combining that with a knowledge of its' internal anatomy, life history, habitat and behaviour, and hours of patient discovery as I draw and absorb its every detail. Then weeks of meditative painting and reflection; reading, researching and constantly discovering more. I know this animal intimately now and thus I feel a responsibility for it and must do all I can to ensure it thrives.
Or take this drawing of the coral reef. I have literally immersed myself in it, spent hours on end listening to the hiss and crackle of its underwater universe, watched the dancing play of light across its branches, deciphered the shadows in the maze of its interior, braced against the constant urge of current and the sudden chill of an eddy from the deep. I have traced its every contour for months. Even now, far away in time and space I can feel the incremental pace of its growth, its spreading weight and mass, its epochal advance.
We live in a world of artifice, surrounded by the clatter and clamour of human life invented. My work here is a small act of worship of another world. The real world. A world of beauty and mystery, a world of other lives, the world which sustains us all. I belong to that world and it lives in me now. Here it is, look closely, take sustenance. I offer it to you also.
In memory of Tim Klingender, dear friend and fellow traveller in the real world always with a keen eye and an open heart.
Roger Swainston 2023
Roger Swainston
Eastern Blue Groper, 2023
Acrylic on paper
13.5 by 26cm
$2,750
Roger Swainston
Tang's Snapper, 2023
Acrylic on paper
18.5 by 29cm
SOLD
Pipefishes I, Deepbody & Smooth, 2022
Acrylic on paper
85 by 25cm
SOLD
Pipefishes II, Halfbanded & Pugnose, 2022
Acrylic on paper
95 by 25cm
$1,650
Pipefishes III, Upside down & Rhino, 2022
Acrylic on paper
85 by 23cm
SOLD
Pipefishes IV, Red Widebody, Ringback, Hairy, 2022
Acrylic on paper
95 by 24cm
$1,650
Copyright:
© Copyright Tim Klingender Fine Art
© Boxer Milner / Copyright Agency, 2023
© Emily Kame Kngwarreye / Copyright Agency, 2023
© Angelina Pwerle / Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd, 2023
© The Estate of Ningura Napurrula
© Bai Bai Napangardi
© Pepai Jangala Carroll / Copyright Agency, 2023
© The Estate of Wattie Karruwara
© Guykuda Munungurr
© Stephen Dupont
© Roger Swainston
Cover image - detail
Boxer Milner Tjampitjin, Purkitji, 2002
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
120 by 180cm
This page
This page
Pepai Jangala Carroll (c.1930 - 2021)
Ilpili, 2018
Acrylic on linen
170 by 180cm
Catalogue design stephen oxenbury
Tim Klingender Fine Art
PO Box 544 Double Bay NSW 1360
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