Provenance
Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association - CAAMA, cat. no. 1
The Collection of Ladue Investment Partnership, United States of America, acquired from the above
Modern + Contemporary Art, Shapiro Auctioneers, Melbourne, 10 December 2003, lot 159
Private Collection, Sydney, acquired from the above
Exhibited
Literature
St Louis, 1993, front cover (illus.)
Jennifer Loureide Biddle, Breasts, Bodies, Canvas: Central Desert Art as Experience, University of NSW Press, Sydney, 2007, front cover, title page and p. 40 (illus.)
Margo Neale, Utopia: The Genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, 2008, p. 59 (illus.) and p. 217 (illus. catalogue Japan)
Description
inscribed verso with artist's name and 'Property of CAAMA'; also inscribed with title and Utopia Body Paint Collection, catalogue no. 1 on the backing board
Utopia Body Paint Collection, 1990. The following six works of art are from a collection of seventy-one paintings of body paint designs commissioned by Rodney. Gooch for the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA), Utopia, NT., in early1990. CAAMA was devoted to the documentation, preservation and promotion of Aboriginal cultural traditions. The collection was. executed in the first three months of 1990. In the preceding two summers Gooch initiated two similar community survey. projects with artists at Utopia. The first was a collection of 88 batiks, which was subsequently acquired by the Holmes à Court. Collection. The second was a collection of 80 canvases known as 'Utopia Women's Paintings: The First Works on Canvas: A. Summer Project 1988-89'. This group of work was exhibited at the SH Ervin Gallery in Sydney and the acclaim for the community, in particular the work of Emily Kame Kngwarreye, can be traced to this exposure. For an essay detailing the origins of the Utopia movement, featuring the CAAMA projects, see, 'Alhalkere' by Christopher. Hodges in Margot Neale (ed. ,), Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Alhalkere Paintings from Utopia, Queensland Art Gallery, pp33. 38. The Collection on offer here toured North America in 1993-1995 with the exhibition title: Utopia Body Paint, A Collection of. 77 Paintings by Australian Aboriginal Artists at Utopia, Central Australia. Patrick McCaughey writes in the introduction to the touring catalogue. 'The Body Paint Collection is the meeting point between ritual and artefact. The designs are taken from the traditional body. markings, which are intrinsically ephemeral, washed off the body after the ceremony but now transferred to the cm oval shaped. canvas. The cm oval shape is reminiscent of shields, sacred churingas and coolamons, and related to aspects of hunting and feeding. Both male and female artists contributed to the Utopia Body Paint Collection but the majority of works were made by. women. The ritual origins of the women's work lie predominantly in women's ceremonies, 'awelye', which represent their. obligations to look after the land, so that it will continue to be fertile with game and vegetation to sustain life for the community.' For other paintings of the same subject produced from different commissions of body paint designs for CAAMA during the same period see: Bernard Luthi, Aratjara, Art of the FirstAustralians (exhibition catalogue), 1993, cat. 120, p274; and Margot. Neale (ed. ,) Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Alhalkere Paintings from Utopia, Queensland Art Gallery, 1998, pl. 49 (cat. 31), illus. page 81 and pl.56 (cat. 32), illus. p89
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