29 October 2010 – 26 January 2011
Touring
nationally in 2011
Drawn entirely from the extensive holdings of Aboriginal art from the Art Gallery of
South
Australia’s pioneering collection, Desert
Country is the first exhibition to chart the forty year
evolution of the internationally acclaimed
Australian desert painting movement, and to
demonstrate the unstoppable reaches of this
remarkable art movement.
Beginning with the exquisite watercolours of
Albert Namatjira and his contemporaries, followed with rare examples of the first experimental
paintings by its ground-breaking masters in 1971, Desert Country highlights the cultural fluidity
between the principal Aboriginal art producing regions of the desert in the Northern Territory,
South Australia and Western Australia. It culminates with powerful paintings from Anangu
Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of far northwest South Australia by some of Australia’s most
outstanding contemporary artists such as Maringka Baker, Nura Rupert, Kunmanara Jimmy Baker and
Tjungkara Ken.
The exhibition is proudly sponsored by Santos,
the Gallery’s Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander collection sponsor.
Tjungkara Ken, Australia, 1969, Pitjantjatjara people, South Australia, Ngayuku ngura - My
country, 2010, Amata, South Australia, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 152.5 x 101.5 cm,
d'Auvergne Boxall Bequest Fund 2010. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. © Tjungkara Ken,
Courtesy of Tjala Arts
