Title
One whitefella, one blackfella swimming, all them animals frightened to drink the water, that's true!
2022
Artist
Billy Tjampitjinpa Kenda
Australia
1972 –
Language groups: Luritja, Central Desert region, Pitjantjatjara, Southern Desert region
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Alice Springs
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Northern Territory
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Australia
- Date
- 2022
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- acrylic on canvas
- Dimensions
- 51.0 x 50.8 x 2.6 cm
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Roberts Family Acquisition Fund 2022
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 194.2022
- Copyright
- © Billy Tjampitjinpa
- Wynne Prize
- - 2022
- Artist information
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Billy Tjampitjinpa Kenda
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
For Billy Tjampitjinpa Kenda, the desert landscape of Country, the area of Tjoritja/West MacDonnell Ranges to which the artist is connected, is a simple, and in parts, untouched, splendour. Here, where rolling hills recede into the horizon, the viewer’s eye is drawn down to a chalky white tree, and parked below, a car. In the creek nearby, a non-Indigenous and Aboriginal man take a moment of respite from the scorching desert sun, cooling down in a creek.
Kenda often uses aeroplanes, cars and trucks in his work to speak to modernity’s arrival in Central Australia, and how often, when travelling, one can overlook the inherent beauty of place. In One whitefella, one blackfella swimming, all them animals frightened to drink the water, that's true! 2022 Kenda suggests that the car is out of place, and in pulling the scene up flat, he disallows travel across the landscape. Instead, Kenda invites the viewer, like the two men in the creek, to travel across his Country, to cool down in the stream, to walk across the hot red sand, and to experience the heat upon one’s brow. This is Kenda’s call to return to Country, to actively engage with the seen and unseen in the world around us.
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Places
Where the work was made
Alice Springs
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Exhibition history
Shown in 1 exhibition
Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes (2022), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 May 2022–28 Aug 2022