LAWRENCE PENNINGTON | Sydney
The Tall Man

D’Lan Contemporary is honoured to present a solo exhibition of paintings by the late Lawrence Mirrinya Pennington (c. 1935-2024), a revered senior painter from the remote community of Tjuntjuntjara in Western Australia.

Born sometime in the mid-1930’s, Lawrence spent his formative years traversing Spinifex country with his extended family group. Living beyond the reach of the settlers, pastoralists and miners that had begun to encroach upon much of remote Australia. Lawrence’s first contact with settlement life came during the early 1950’s when he and several other families approached the vicinity of the mission at Ernabella where a number of their relatives had settled over the previous two decades. After a brief time spent at the mission, life continued on Spinifex country until, Lawrence and many other Aṉangu (Aboriginal people) were forcibly removed from their country in preparation for the atomic tests at Maralinga. Alongside his Spinifex kin he was taken west to settle at Cundalee Mission.

Lawrence began painting in the 1990s, and while his early works shared the formal language common to desert art, his practice quickly evolved into a strikingly singular visual vocabulary. Early collaborations with, and observances of, other painting men encouraged a reductionist approach, devoid of decoration and reliant upon design. His earlier tendency to fill the space diminished and his painted shapes no longer served as a mere framework upon which the painting could proceed, they became the painting.

This remarkable collection of paintings offer a rare, compelling vision of Spinifex Country, and an opportunity to celebrate a master of contemporary desert painting.