Saturday, 13 June – Saturday, 12 September 2009

Circles and Ceremonies

Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Paintings by Old Masters and New Stars

Open House:         11:00 am – 6:00 pm
                               Saturday, 13 June 2009

As with many indigenous cultures, the circle has traditionally been an important element in Australian Aboriginal ceremonies, in body decoration, and since the early 1970s, in paintings on canvas. Central and western desert artists often use concentric circles symbolically to indicate important places or objects, such as sacred or ceremonial sites, waterholes or campfires, even stars in constellations.

The exhibition features paintings by “old masters” such as Morris Japanangka, whose large “Wild Potato Ceremony,” is rich with images of decorative hair string and feather belts floating on a ground of dots representing a sacred ceremonial site in his ancestral country; Paddy Japaljarri Sims, with his complex painting of the Milky Way Dreaming with its undulating patterns of color; and Lorna Fencer Napurrurla, whose abstract “White Bush Potato Dreaming,” explodes with slashing brush strokes in vivid greens and oranges. Works by new talents include colorful paintings by emerging desert artists Lawrence Jangala Watson, Alma Nungarrayi, and Patsy Nangala.

Paintings in this exhibition are priced from under $200. to $10,000. +.

Morgan Perkins and Howard Morphy, in The Anthropology of Art, 2006:
“. . . A circle between two facing arcs might in one instance specify two (particular) persons sitting at a waterhole, and in another, two persons sitting at a fire; these individuals might be human beings or ancestral persons such as kangaroo men or any other class of mobile being recognized by the Walbiri [aka Walpiri, a desert tribe]. The point is that the persons using the system[of icons] select in each instance a specific meaning from the range of possible meanings.”

coming this fall . . .

Booker-Lowe is delighted to announce that we will be hosting the first US exhibition of paintings from the exciting artists of the Ampilatwatja group from the Sandover River area in the central desert. The painters have just had an amazing sell-out show in Sydney, and are rapidly gaining an international reputation for their colorful abstracts and naïve paintings of desert plant life. More news to follow . . .

ongoing . . .

Pippin Drysdale's World-Acclaimed Porcelains

Booker-Lowe is proud to represent Australian ceramist, Pip Drysdale, and shows her work on a regular basis. Pip has won countless awards, and has had solo exhibitions in Japan, Germany, Belgium, France, India, Hong Kong, London, New Zealand, Russia, and throughout Australia.

The Australian Embassy in Washington DC, in conjunction with Booker-Lowe Gallery, will host her first major US exhibition 12 February – 2 April 2010! We are disappointed that the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft will be unable to host its long-planned exhibition of Pip’s work in 2010, due to unanticipated financial difficulties at the Center.

Look for a major feature on Pip's new work (and the Embassy exhibition collection) in the fall edition (Sept/Oct/Nov) of the international magazine, Ceramics: Art and Perception.

Nana Booker
Honorary Consul of Australia