LOFTY BARDAYAL NADJAMERREK
New Works
LOFTY BARDAYAL NADJAMERREK AO (born around 1926) is a living National treasure and only one of two Northern Territory Australians to be honoured with as an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia.
Lofty has a close affinity to rock painting which was taught to him by his Father and started painting directly on rock in the late thirties. His conventional career as a painter began in the early 1980?s and he has participated in numerous group shows in Australia, Japan and the USA and his work hangs in all major State collections in Australia.
Lofty?s landmark solo exhibition of works on paper at Annandale Galleries in June/July 2003 produced no less than seven museum sales including the National Gallery and two pieces currently featured in the CROSSING COUNTRY exhibition at the Art Gallery NSW until the the end of November. The Art Gallery catalogue devotes nine pages to an interview with Lofty conducted and translated by Murray Garde who is doing an ongoing survey of the rock paintings in Arnhem Land and has turned to Lofty for his unrivalled knowledge of the whereabouts and meaning of the stories in the rock art.
Lofty conveys his images with authority and authenticity and the works have an ethereal presence which make an indelible mark on the imagination of the viewer. For this exhibition, he has returned to the medium of bark as opposed to paper. They are not done with the fine crosshatching of the earlier work but the seemingly random drips of paint or smudges are in fact a calculated spontaneity which make the works in my view perhaps the finest and most important of his career. Like the late cut-outs of Matisse, they are the culmination of a life's work, spontaneous and pure in feel and yet guided by a lifetime of knowledge of the law and experience in painting.
Lofty has a close affinity to rock painting which was taught to him by his Father and started painting directly on rock in the late thirties. His conventional career as a painter began in the early 1980?s and he has participated in numerous group shows in Australia, Japan and the USA and his work hangs in all major State collections in Australia.
Lofty?s landmark solo exhibition of works on paper at Annandale Galleries in June/July 2003 produced no less than seven museum sales including the National Gallery and two pieces currently featured in the CROSSING COUNTRY exhibition at the Art Gallery NSW until the the end of November. The Art Gallery catalogue devotes nine pages to an interview with Lofty conducted and translated by Murray Garde who is doing an ongoing survey of the rock paintings in Arnhem Land and has turned to Lofty for his unrivalled knowledge of the whereabouts and meaning of the stories in the rock art.
Lofty conveys his images with authority and authenticity and the works have an ethereal presence which make an indelible mark on the imagination of the viewer. For this exhibition, he has returned to the medium of bark as opposed to paper. They are not done with the fine crosshatching of the earlier work but the seemingly random drips of paint or smudges are in fact a calculated spontaneity which make the works in my view perhaps the finest and most important of his career. Like the late cut-outs of Matisse, they are the culmination of a life's work, spontaneous and pure in feel and yet guided by a lifetime of knowledge of the law and experience in painting.