Is the truth about this ‘Outback genius' more complex than the Tate makes out?
Perhaps Balshaw was galvanised by a research trip to, as she puts it, 'the red desert lands of Alhalker', in Australia's Northern Territory, where Kngwarray – who, according to the curators, extended 'a continuing cultural tradition much more ancient than any to have sprung from European soil' – was born in 1914. Certainly, the show exemplifies a recent turn towards indigenous art; this, rather than, say, yet another exhibition devoted to Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso, is what gets Tate's curators going these days.
Given the 'bush' (or personal) name Kam, after the Aboriginal word for the seeds and seedpods of the 'pencil yam' (which later inspired a motif commonly found in her canvases), Kngwarray – whose early years predated the 'whitefeller' domination of Central Australia – only took up painting in 1988, towards the end of her life, having spent 11 years working in batik while participating in art-and-craft workshops. After a couple of introductory rooms, the exhibition gives the impression that, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus, she emerged as an artist fully formed.
Twenty-five surprisingly homogenous early paintings appear in a vast, open gallery, along with eight batiks (some of which seem to seethe with insect-like life). These acrylic pictures are mostly abstracted fields of dots, like blooms of lichen, or microbes multiplying on a microscope slide, but representing native seeds. Sometimes accompanied by interconnecting lines, they are superimposed on dun, reddish backgrounds redolent of the brick-coloured soil of Kngwarray's homeland.
Occasionally, schematic motifs, also associated with Alhalker Country, are perceptible: the distinctive shapes of local flora, an emu's three-toed footprints, the child-like silhouettes of geckos or blue-tongued lizards; often, there's a sense of something stirring and fluttering in scrubby undergrowth. In effect, they're not unlike those colour-blindness tests in which numbers are hidden among dots of contrasting hues.
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12 hours ago
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Wayne Carey reveals his embarrassing new nickname in the wake of viral 'toilet tryst' video
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He said there was absolutely nothing in it. The girl has said there was nothing in it, so he's taking umbrage at being accused of being a home breaker.' Fordham delivered his response to Newman's revelation, issuing his empathy to Carey over the matter before adding it was a 'gross invasion of someone's privacy'. 'If that's the case, I can understand why he's filthy, but I just couldn't, I was waiting for you to ask him the question on the podcast, and I don't know whether you just didn't want to become roadkill because he was on a bit of a mission at the time... but that's what I wanted to know. 'Only because he spoke about it for so long and he was going into so much detail. I just couldn't help but wonder, did you happen to step into the same cubicle or not? Obviously, he didn't. Two people can walk out of the [toilet] in the same direction a few minutes apart, having spent no time together at that location. Fordham added: 'It's a gross invasion of someone's privacy and it affects a lot of people.' Carey made 2244 appearances for North Melbourne between 1989 and 2001 before moving to play for the Adelaide Crows in 2003. He added that he would be following through on the matter 'to the tenth degree'. 'We are speaking and we will follow this through to the tenth degree. I'm blown away that women in their 40s could think this was a good idea. How would they explain this to their children?' he explained. 'This is women being cruel to another woman. They have shamed another woman and it is so wrong. It happens far too often and it doesn't get called out. Men do it and it gets called out as it should. Let's see where this goes to from here.'
