Carlene West Pitjantjatjara language, circa 1944-2021
Tjijtiti, 2015
Synthetic polymer paint on linen
78.7 x 114.2 inches (200 x 290 cm)
Photo: Courtesy of D’Lan Contemporary
Provenance
Spinifex Arts Project, Western Australia, cat. no. 15-97
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: August 20, 2016 – December 21, 2016 Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, FL: January 28, 2017 – May 14, 2017 Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV: February 17, 2018 – May 13, 2018; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC: June 2 – September 9, 2018; Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, November 2018 – February 2019
60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, New York, 15 - 20 May, 2023
Publications
Henry F. Skerritt, ed. et al, Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia, Prestel Verlag, Munich-London-New York, 2017, p. 100 (illus.)
Vanessa Merlino and Luke Scholes, 60 over 50: 60 Paintings from 50 Years of Australian First Nations Art, UOVO, 2023, p. 28-29 (illus.)
“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, 2023, p. 28)
Related artworks
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Carlene West, Tjitjiti, 2014 -
Carlene West, Tjitjiti, 2015
