Carlene West Pitjantjatjara language, circa 1944-2021
Provenance
The Artist, painted at Tjuntjuntjara, Western Australia
Spinifex Arts Project, Western Australia, cat. no. 15-105
The Dennis and Debra Scholl Collection, Miami
D’Lan Contemporary, Melbourne
Collection of Steve Martin & Anne Stringfield, New York
Exhibitions
Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia, Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 7 September 2016 - 1 January 2017; Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL, 28 January - 7 May 2017; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ, 23 September - 21 January 2018; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV, 17 February - 13 May 2018; The Philips Collection, Washington, DC, 2 June - 9 September 2018; Museum of Anthropology, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 1 November - 24 February 2019
Selections from Australia’s Western Desert National, Arts Club Gramercy Park, New York, 12 Sep 2022 - 27 Oct 2022
Selections from Australia’s Western Desert National, Arts Club Gramercy Park, New York, 12 Sep 2022 - 27 Oct 2022
60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, New York, May 2023
Approaching Abstraction: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Across Australia, Asia Society, New York, 18 September 2024 - 05 January 2025
Publications
“The salt lake of Tjitjiti is in the remote region of Spinifex Country in the Great Victoria Desert. It is the singular subject of Carlene West’s paintings. When, in 1997, Carlene first commenced painting this site at the heart of her traditional lands, she was painting from memory, having yet to revisit after being brought into the mission as a teenage girl in 1959. She would continue to paint from memory for many years until her family could make the arduous and challenging journey back to Tjitjiti in 2009, after which her paintings depicting the lake changed and expanded. As the narratives associated with this place emerged with renewed iconographic clarity, the lake’s boundaries continued to mutate and grow as the artist began to suffer from early-onset Alzheimer’s in her late career.”
— Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, 2023
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Carlene West, Tjitjiti, 2014 -
Carlene West, Tjitjiti, 2015
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Carlene West, Tjijtiti, 2015
