Ken done > Permanent Collection
Emily and Michael's place I 1995, oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 121 x 181cm
This is one panel of a double painting, both pieces called Emily and Michael’s Place, and it refers to two wonderful Aboriginal artists: one, Emily Kngwarreye and Michael Nelson Tjakamarra. Most of Emily’s work evolved around spots or stripes, in this case I’ve used the stripes to symbolise her work, and for Michael’s place, I’ve made a spotted landscape but I’ve put the heads of people within the landscape itself. I mean there is the relationship between Aboriginals and the land is incredibly intertwined and I wanted to show that they absolutely become part of the landscape. Michael did a big mural in the front of Parliament House. I first met him with James Morrison, he and I were doing the work for BMW when I did an art car. I painted an art car as did Michael. A number of quite famous artists had done art cars: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Alexander Calder, and we’d gone out to Alice Springs with a film company to film Michael. So I wanted this painting to be in respect of two great Aboriginal artists, but whereas Emily would have used natural ochres to make her stripes, I used enamel because I am a different kind of artist. I wanted to use the same symbolism but show it in a different kind of medium. And for Michael, well, lots of spots, lots of dots, the kind of things that he likes as most Aboriginals artist do, but using heads almost as part of the mountain ranges themselves.
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