Earth's Creation
Encyclopedia
The Artist & Painting
Emily Kame Kngwarreye painted Earth's Creation in 1994 at UtopiaUtopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
, north east of Alice Springs.
She was a senior Anmatyerre
Anmatyerre
Anmatyerr, are an Indigenous Australian people, or language group, from the Northern Territory. They are from an area near Arnka , Arwerlt Atwaty Anmatyerr, are an Indigenous Australian people, or language group, from the Northern Territory. They are from an area near Arnka (Mount Leichhardt),...
woman, who only commenced painting when she was aged about 80. In the following 8 years she produced an astonishing 3,000 or more paintings; an average of one painting per day.
Earth's Creation is described as part of her "high-colourist" phase. It's dubbed a rich vibrant masterpiece of swirling blues, greens and yellows, from what Kngwarreye called the "green time", after the rains came and the bush erupted in new life. She painted with a 'dump dot' technique, also known as ‘dump dump’, using her brush to pound the acrylic paint onto the canvas and create layers of colour and movement.
The painting represents, in the words of the artist, "whole lot" - Earth's Creation.
Emily's paintings are described by leading international art academics as being equal to the works of Monet, and other great Abstract artists such as Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, and Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko
Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
.
http://www.aboriginalartnews.com.au/2009/03/earths-creation-in-alice.php Earth's Creation in Alice] This highly controversial American work put the National Gallery of AustraliaNational Gallery of AustraliaThe National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
(NGA) onto the world stage in 1973, and remains one of its most celebrated works today.
Painting HistoryAfter being held in a private collection, Earth’s Creation was purchased by the Mbantua Gallery & Cultural Museum at the Lawson Menzies auction in Sydney on May 23, 2007 for $1,056,000. At the time, this was the world record price for Aboriginal art.
On the request of the National Museum of Australia (NMA), Earth's Creation was loaned immediately on purchase to tour in Tokyo and Osaka in Japan in 2007, and to be exhibited at the National Museum in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
in 2008. It was exhibited in the Great Hall of Parliament House in Darwin before heading to Alice Springs, where it had never been displayed publicly.
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