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Pastoralism was part of the foundational experience of Aboriginal people across Australia during the twentieth century. Fencing, moving cattle and sheep from place to place, maintaining bores, castrating and branding have become a cultural memory of a hard and glorious times. The originality of the Stockmen exhibition lies in showing this legacy not only in paintings of horses, cattle and stockmen, or in verdant landscape paintings of hills and waterholes, but also in dot painting and paintings of traditional weapons. While they do not picture the iconography of stations, they bring to mind fixing windmills, making fenceposts and traversing great tracts of Country wrangling cattle and sheep. The experience of Country for those living on stations was not only in the breaking of horses, fixing windmills and singing the cattle at night. It was also seeing and performing in ceremonies on station camps, visiting ancestral waterholes and traversing stock routes that had been created atop ancient Songlines.
It is with a view to capturing the totality of the pastoral influence upon remote Australia that Stockmen brings a range of visual ideas together, from dot painting to visionary landscapes. It is often said that contemporary art charts ideas of the future, while in this exhibition it is possible to envisage the fullness of the lived experience of a quickly receding past. These artists offer a sense of just how much remote Australia has changed, while grounding these changes in Country that remains ever present and within view. They remind us that pastoralism did not destroy ancestral practices and perceptions but created new ways of embedding them in contemporary life.
Full text by Darren Jorgensen in the catalogue.
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Works
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Kumanjayi PaddyArrarantenh, 2022Acrylic on canvas122cm x 152cm -
Kumanjayi PaddyCattle to Mt Isa, 2023Acrylic on linen102 x 76 cm -
Kumanjayi PaddyUntitled, 2021Acrylic on linen51 x 51 cm -
Sam Dixon Jampijna MpetyanAnety, 2026Acrylic on Erythrina Vespertilio68 x 12 x 12 cm$ 1,400.00 -
Sam Dixon Jampijna MpetyanAnety, 2026Acrylic on Erythrina Vespertilio51 x 10 x 10 cm$ 1,200.00 -
Freddy KenKulata and Kali (Spear & Boomerang), 2025Acrylic on canvas120 x 91 cm$ 3,300.00 -
Freddy KenKulata Tjuta - Kungkarangkalpa Freddy's Story, 2025Acrylic on canvas91 x 61 cm$ 1,750.00 -
Freddy KenKulata Tjuta - Many Spears, 2024Acrylic on linen121 x 100 cm$ 3,700.00 -
Freddy KenKulata Tjuta - Many Spears, 2024Acrylic on linen76 x 51 cm$ 1,300.00 -
Freddy KenFreddy's Tjitji Tjuta (Many Children) Story, 2022Acrylic on linen122 x 99 cm$ 3,700.00 -
Rupert JackPulukangka (Stockman)Acrylic on linen119 x 79 cm$ 4,000.00 -
Rupert JackPulukangka (Stockman)Acrylic on linen91 x 46 cm$ 2,800.00 -
Rupert JackPulukangka (Stockman)Acrylic on linen75 x 52 cm$ 2,500.00 -
Sam Dixon Jampijna MpetyanAmwang, Quiet One, 2026Acrylic on Erythrina Vespertilio49 x 21 x 4 cm$ 650.00 -
Sam Dixon Jampijna MpetyanArlewatyerr Ngkwern, Goanna Bones, 2026Acrylic on Erythrina Vespertilio51 x 23 x 3.5 cm$ 650.00 -
Dinny Kunoth KemarrTeweyat, 2023Acrylic on Erythrina Vespertilio53 x 22 x 20 cm$ 2,500.00 -
Dinny Kunoth KemarrCowboy, 2025Acrylic on cast acrylic resin48 x 12 x 12 cm$ 1,200.00 -
Dinny Kunoth KemarrCowboy, 2026Acrylic on cast acrylic resin41 x 17 x 9 cm$ 1,200.00 -
Neville Niypula McarthurLake Baker, 2016Acrylic on canvas101 x 50 cm$ 2,200.00 -
Neville Niypula McarthurLake Baker, 2015Acrylic on canvas76 x 76 cm$ 2,000.00 -
Neville Niypula McarthurLake Baker, 2015Acrylic on canvas76 x 101 cm$ 2,700.00 -
Neville Niypula McarthurLake Baker, 2016Acrylic on canvas50 x 76 cm$ 1,400.00 -
Neville Niypula McarthurLake Baker, 2016Acrylic on canvas76 x 101 cm$ 2,700.00 -
Neville Niypula McarthurLake Baker, 2019Acrylic on canvas38 x 101 cm$ 1,450.00 -
Wendy HubertMy Father as a Stockman Horse Breaker , 2025Acrylic on canvas97.5 x 79.5 cm$ 5,500.00 -
Wendy HubertNgurra (Yindjibarndi Country), 2023Acrylic on canvas100 x 78 cm$ 5,500.00 -
Wendy HubertNgurra (Yindjibarndi Country), 2023Acrylic on canvas79 x 96 cm$ 5,500.00 -
Billy Benn PerrurleArtetyerre, 2004Acrylic paint on plywood39 x 30 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleArtetyerre, 2005Acrylic paint on board119.5 x 30 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleUntitledAcrylic paint on plywood29.5 x 19 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleUntitledAcrylic paint on plywood26 x 16 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleArtetyerreAcrylic on canvas20 x 30 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleArtetyerreAcrylic on canvas20 x 46 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleUntitled, 2021Acrylic paint on plywood30 X 20 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleArtetyerreAcrylic on canvas20 x 46 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleArtetyerreAcrylic on canvas20 x 30 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleUntitled, 2021Acrylic paint on plywood60 x 10 cm -
Billy Benn PerrurleUntitledAcrylic paint on plywood21 x 4 cm
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Artists