Aboriginal artwork is a popular genre in the world of contemporary art and leading the way is the world-renowned artist Abie Loy Kemarre. Known for her extremely fine painting techniques and complex optical effects, Ms. Kemarre has an illustrious artistic pedigree from the likes of the late Emily Kngwarreye, her grandmother Kathleen Petyarre, and her aunt Gloria Petyarre.
Aboriginal Art Themes
In 1994, she made her professional artwork debut under the tutelage of her grandmother. The “Bush Hen Dreaming,” which he inherited from her grandfather, tells a story about a bush hen’s journey to Mosquito Bore in search for bush plums and tomatoes bearing the yellow fruit Arkitjira that are scattered over her ancestral country.
The Aboriginal art features a bright orange-coloured circle that represents a dry water hole where only women can go. That distinctive feature in the painting is a sacred site, where women pay homage to their ancestors through ceremonies of song and dance cycles. Aside from that, she depicted body designs for women used in these traditional sacred ceremonies. The colours used are similar to the natural ochre body paint.
In her early version of the Bush Hen series, she used a satay stick to apply layer upon layer of fine dots unto the dark background. Criss-crossing geometric and diagonal lines characterise the oil painting, which also included backgrounds painted in chocolate browns and numerous pale blue, gold, white, and pink dots thereby creating an amazing sense of space. In the later version, the theme refers specifically to the sand hill, and represents a departure from the fine dotting technique.
Aboriginal Dot Art and Other Works
Among her prominent Aboriginal art paintings includes the “Bush Leaf Dreaming” and the “Women’s Body Painting.” In both Aboriginal dot art paintings, Ms. Kemarre effectively utilised line and colour with a captivating effect to explore the spatial qualities of the canvass. Referring specifically to women, Bush Leaf is a metaphor to the regenerative powers of the female gender. Her style emphasises directional geometry that subtly pulls the movement of lines and colours to converge at a particular point in the canvass thereby creating waves of gently changing colour rippling across the canvass.
Inspired by the body painting in her Eastern Anmatyerr heritage, Ms. Kemarre based Body Painting not only on traditional painting but also on their rich narrative, music and dance traditions. She captures the three-dimensionality of the human body in movement and like Body Leaf series, the lively surfaces dance with some areas seems to advance while others recede.
Ms. Kemarre depicted Bush Hen as a totem or metonymic device in her associated Sand-hills and Body Painting series of works. Her powerful and beautiful paintings were able to convey to the viewing public the strength and sensitivity she derives from her Bush Hen artwork.
Growing Popularity
Abie Loy Kemarre's unique signature style of painting portrays the strength and power she feels for her land and people. As a result, her Aboriginal artwork has brought her critical acclaim that places her at the leading edge of the modern art movement.
Major art collections and exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, have prominently featured her artwork in recognition to her accomplishments that helped put Aboriginal art at the top of the contemporary art scene.
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