017
Abie Loy
Kemarre
Alyawarre/Eastern Anmatyerre (born 1972)
Awelye – Body Painting, 2007
synthetic polymer paint on linen
122 x 122cm
PROVENANCE
Commissioned by Galerie Australis, Adelaide, cat.no. GAAL03071512; accompanied
by original certificate of authenticity
Documentation reads
Contemporary Eastern Anmatyerre art is founded upon a rich tradition of
body painting that is highly gender specific.
Abie Loy Kemarre’s body painting works reflect this tradition, arising
from awelye, women’s only ceremonies in which paint is applied to
women’s upper bodies (and in some special circumstances, to their
thighs) by other women. In the old days the women used their fingertips
and small, sharpened twigs to apply ground and coloured ochres (red, white
and yellow) mixed with animal fats. The colour black was also used in
body painting, obtained either from charcoal or over-ripe bush plums.
Using other women’s bodies as the canvas, there were strict rules
regarding which specific designs could be applied. This took place with
a holistic ceremonial process, involving painting, narration, music, song
and dance. Abie Loy Kemarre references the performativity of women’s
ceremonial life in these kinetic and daringly innovative canvases, capturing
the three-dimensionality of the human body in movement.
[Copyright - Dr Christine Nicholls, Senior Lecturer, Australian Studies,
Postgraduate Coordinator, Dept. of Cultural Studies, School of Humanities,
Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, 2003]