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JEFFREY MOOSE GALLERY

AUGUST THROUGH SEPTEMBER 1999

Fourth Annual Australian Aboriginal Art Exhibition

October 1st through November
EXTENDED to December 4th
Reception Friday, October 8th from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Jeffrey Moose Gallery is proud to announce it's Fourth Annual exhibition of Australian Aboriginal art, featuring editioned prints by some of the genres most important names as well as original works on canvas and bark in addition to sculpture from American ex-patriot and now Australian citizen, John Gardner. The showing will run from October 1st through November. The exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, October 8th from 5:30 to 8:30 pm, including a Digeridoo performance by expert Brian Pertl. Mr. Moose will deliver a talk on the subject at 6:30 pm the same evening.


This year's show has strong connections to a major showing of works by Australian Aboriginal artists at San Francisco's California Palace of the Legion of Honor. The exhibition, entitled "Spirit Country: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Gantner Myer Collection", will run from September 18th to Jan 9th of the year 2000. It will feature 125 works focusing on acrylic paintings dating from the 60's to the present day painted by artists of the Central and Western Desert and both paintings and sculpture from peoples of Arnhem Land and the islands of Northern Australia. The show's Australian curator, veteran Australian government Aboriginal art liaison Jennifer Issacs, will Lecture at SAM in late September.

The gallery's show will include a strong selection of more than a dozen hand-pulled high quality archival fine art prints, made by some of Australia's greatest artists including Rover Thomas, from the Kimberly region, whose paintings were hung in the Venice Bienale in 1990, and Queenie McKenzie, also from the Kimberly. Also on display will be a group of dot paintings from the Central Desert by artists including Lindsay Bird and Gloria Petyarre and bark paintings from the Arnhem land community of Yirrkala.

Australian Aboriginal art is one of the most powerful recent entries on the contemporary art scene, even though its origins go back further, perhaps, than any other surviving art form on the planet. The "Dreamings", or creation myth stories, of the plant and animal ancestors which support traditional Aboriginal societies are the primary content of their art. Aboriginals see themselves as caretakers of the lands from which they came and their reverence for the earth and its bounty exudes from all their cultural activities.

Ex New Yorker John Gardner, an Australian citizen since 1972, will exhibit a selection of sculptures composed of combinations of cast bronze, aluminum and Australian sandstone in conjunction with this show. Gardner, Australian Aboriginal 4 PR. P. 2 whose career began at the National Academy of Fine Arts in New York in 1961, received a BFA fron the University of Connecticut in 1966 and worked as an assistant to sculptor Irving Marantz in the late 60's. His work is a savvy brand of Ab Ex sculpture, similar to that of Chicago master Richard Hunt. It references forms from Africa, including Kenya and Zimbabwe, but also refelcts elements of Australian Aboriginal culture, with which Gardner is passionately involved.

For more information call Jeffrey Moose gallery, (206) 467-6951. For info on the San Francisco show please surf to: www.thinker.org/legion/exhibitions/spiritcountry/index.html.

Works:

Minyakuma, Marie
"Shark"
ochre on eucalyptus bark
32"x12"
Mpetyane, Lindsay Bird
"Men's Dreaming"
acrylic on canvas
40"x50"
Petyarre, Greeny Purvis
"Emu (Ankerre) Dreaming"
acrylic on canvas
31.5"x49"
Bird, Ada Petyarre
"Body Paint Design"
acrylic on canvas
36"x49"
Petyarre, Gloria
"Grass Seed Dreaming"
acrylic on canvas
35"x48"
McKenzie, Queenie
"The Horso Creek Massacre"
serigraph
29"x42"
Naparula, Marlee
"Nulla Nullas"
serigraph
40"x30"
Thomas, Rover
"Durba George"
serigraph
27.5"x39"

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