'Her Meditations' by Biddy Timms Napanangka

Cooee Art Leven is excited to announce the new exhibition ‘Her Meditations’ by artist Biddy Timms Napanangka – in conjunction with her representing not-for-profit art centre Warnayaka.

Working as an artist for almost twenty years, Napanangka’s practice has steadily evolved and you would be hard-pressed to recognise the finely detailed brushwork of an early Timms Napanangka if you were only familiar with her later work. Yet, below the surface, you can find traces of the path leading to the artist she is today.

Warlpiri painting practice as a whole is usually presented as a rhythmic, meditative process involving singing and dancing; swift and fine dot-work spreads over the canvas as the artist traces her sacred Songline across stretches of the Tanami Desert. The art from Lajamanu - as opposed to Yuendumu, the larger of the two Warlpiri townships - is known predominantly for featuring loose, gestural paintings.Many of the artists, however, including Biddy Timms Napanangka, began their careers in the finely-dotted and in some ways more rigid traditions of Warlpiri art-making. Napanangka is a quiet, humble woman.

At this stage in her career, Napanangka has turned to a more inward form of meditation as she paints. After laying down a thick surface of fresh acrylic paint, she holds her brush so that the tip meets the canvas aiming away from her, bristles agains the grain. Observing her at work invokes the meditative raking of sand in a Japanese Zen garden.