MARKUSOOH, MAKUSOOH, MARUSOOH

When Marcus Camphoo arrives to paint, there is a buzz about the Ali Curung painting grounds. The elders, artists and workers who share the grounds are aware of the broad appeal of his curious grids and often offer encouragement for the day’s work. Reverence turns to excitement when he declares that he wants a ‘big one’ and a grand canvas is hauled into the repurposed storage garage which has become his personal studio.

Marcus ‘Double O’ Camphoo Kemarre is a Kaytetye and Alywarr man who began painting in 2017 as part of the Tennant Creek Men’s Centre art program which would go onto become the much-acclaimed Tennant Creek Brio. It was only in 2020 that Double O expanded his practice to Arlpwe Art and Culture Centre in Ali Curung. Double O’s painting practice consists predominantly of a small handful of deceptively simple grid-and-band compositions, seemingly guided by a set of fluid formulas and mental mathematics that he applies to his work. Double O has called his paintings “squares” “windows” or “crosses”, but largely remains tight lipped. At scale, the work forces an intimacy with the viewer and resonate like portals reaching into space, the artist’s psyche or an altogether different dimension. They have been likened to the aesthetic of central desert ceremonial body painting, the structural frames upon which they are painted and window or building shapes of children’s painting – a common remark from the ladies’ painting studio says that he is painting the windows of all the houses he visits as he roams around Ali Curung.

MARKUSOOH, MAKUSOOH, MARUSOOH is Double O’s first solo exhibition and debuts a series of new works on paper. The title arises from the signatures given to the first three pastel on paper drawings that he created in Ali Curung and reflects a truth in his work; there is similarity, but never sameness or predictability. Perhaps informed by the materiality of Double O’s new paper endeavours the companion paintings share a tonal and auratic lightness, a noted departure from the dense, grimy aesthetic of previous work presented alongside the Brio.

Exhibition Catalogue (PDF)