Lorna
Fencer Naparrula |
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$Aud 3,150 + GST 10% for sales
in Australia This painting tells the Dreamtime story of two women of the Naparrula and Nakamarra skin groups who are searching the countryside for bush potatoes. When they search for food the women always take coolamon dishes and digging sticks, their basic hunting equipment. Bush potatoes grow as roots underground so the women must use digging sticks to find them. The potatoes are collected in coolamon dishes and carried back to camp to be cooked in hot coals. Represented in this painting are the holes that the women dig to find the potatoes. The meandering lines represent the complex root system and branches of the bush potato plant. This Dreaming took place at Duck Ponds in the Northern Territory, Australia.
Lorna Fencer Naparrula
Lorna is very highly regarded in her home community of Lajamanu. Indeed she has been described as, ‘one of the most inspirational Warlpiri women I have ever had the pleasure of knowing’. Furthermore, she may be described as a sweet and gentle person who, at the same time, is an aggressive and surprising painter. Surprising because of the way she paints in several different styles and radically alters those styles from time to time. Her use of colour is winning over many collectors who see her art as being fresh, dynamic and, above all representative of the best ‘contemporary’ qualities in the desert painting in the 1990’s. Lorna Naparrurla Fencer was born in 1920 in Yumurrpa country, which is situated near the Granites in the Tanami Desert, Northern Territory. The Yarla (Yam) Dreaming track originates from this region and travels north toward Lajamanu. Today Lorna lives predominantly at Lajamanu and occasionally in Katherine. She thinks nothing of travelling the 650km between the two places. She is a senior Warlpiri woman which means she is responsible, in part, for language, ceremonies and tribal law.
Whilst Lorna has ‘painted up’ all her life, meaning that she was raised as a skilled painter of decorative body designs for ceremonies, her artworks on canvas only date from 1986. At that time she began painting for the Warnayaka Art Centre, Northern Territory. In more recent years, Lorna's work has become increasingly extravagant, abstract and sensual, catching the attention of art collectors from around the world and giving rise to comparisons with the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye. She is one of the painters who is leading the move away from traditional iconography towards a more personal and painterly mode of expression.
Her spirituality is also expressed in dancing as evidenced by this first hand account from Kathy Andrews. She remembers seeing Lorna and Lily Hargraves perform a dance to dispel the rain,
Lorna's Dreamings include Yarla (Yam), Wapirti and Marlujarra. These Dreamings entitle her to paint subjects such as the bush yam (sweet potato), ngalatji (little white flower), bush tomato, caterpillar, wallaby and certain mens stories including some about boomerangs. Her artefacts include coolamons, kudurru (fighting sticks), quartz rocks and slate. The artist paints mainly for the Warnayaka Art Centre at Lajamanu with special commissions for fine art galleries such as Jinta Desert Art, Sydney and Aboriginal Art Galleries of Australia, Melbourne. In 1997 Lorna was granted the Gold Coast City Art Award. Her artistic achievements have been recognised by her inclusion in the Murdoch Court at the National Gallery of Victoria and in the triennial 1998 John McCaughey Memorial Art Prize. Major exhibitions of her artwork include a 1988 ensemble exhibition ‘People, Place, and Art’ held at the Hilton International Hotel in Adelaide, South Australia. In 1991 her work was included in a group exhibition ‘Aboriginal Art’ shown in the Australian Embassy Washington, USA. In the same year, Lorna was included in ‘Aboriginal Art & Spirituality’ curated by Rosemary Crumlin & Anthony Knight in Canberra. In 1994 Lorna exhibited in ‘Yarpakurlangu Wirrkardu’ alongside a range of emerging artists from Batchelor College in Tennant Creek, NT. By 1996 Lorna saw her works displayed in the group exhibition ‘All About Art’ at the Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne followed by a solo show entitled, ‘Me Warlpiri’ in 1997. In the same year, the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne hosted ‘Women's Body Paint’ and ‘Paint Up Big: Walpiri Women's Art From Lajamanu’ group exhibitions. Further success came when she was awarded the Gold Coast City Jupiters Casino Art Award in November 1997. The Australian National Gallery acquired some of Lorna's finest works following the exhibitions. Growing popularity increased Lorna's profile during 1998 and gave rise to a solo exhibition of her work, ‘Yulyulu’ at Alcaston House Gallery in Melbourne.
During 1998 the Australian Heritage Commission Collection, Canberra, acquired some of her works, and she was awarded the John McCaughey Memorial Art prize at the National Gallery of Victoria. Lorna's art is also held in the Christensen Collections of Victoria; Holmes a Court Collection of Western Australia; the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; The Margaret Carnegie Collection, The Laverty Collection and by a limited number of fine art galleries and private collectors around Australia and abroad. |
