Dreamings Sarrita King - eine Erlärung

Lightning

Sarrita’s Lightning paintings are a painted memory of the electrical storms in the tropical climate of Darwin where Sarrita spent her youth. The lightning would crack across the entire sky, creating lines not dissimilar to cracked earth. And with the lightning came the winds that in their fury whipped up all the dust, rain, heat and magnetic energy into a maelstrom in the air. Sarrita would discover new patterns and colours every time she witnessed these natural light shows.

Sarrita paints the lightning series in two main ways: she either encapsulates the intensity of the storm and the driving rain to the point where it is seemingly audible or contrarily, she points out the subtle beauty within the storm and the way in which the elements gracefully twist and turn between the dramatic lightning strikes.

Sandhills

These paintings are inspired by the expanses of sandhills found throughout Australia. They striate across the land and their perpetual movement and varied colours have always fascinated Sarrita. Sarrita recalls her father telling her how the patterns formed by the wind are repeated throughout nature; she reflects on this when flying over the desert and then over the waves of the ocean.

Stylistically minimal, Sarrita leaves a lot of the canvas absent of paint and simply traces fine waving lines across the canvas. Undulating in their movement, they create a subtle hypnotic effect the viewer be drawn in to. Sarrita depicts these topographically which is a very common way of painting or ‘mapping the land’ amongst Central and Western Desert Aboriginal artists.

Water

Inspired by the different geographical water formations, these paintings seek to mimic the movement and colours of this life-giving element. Listening to her father explain the dire importance of water to the Aboriginal people and its culture, Sarrita feels this element in particular connects her to her dad.

Sarrita often uses metallic paint to define the shapes and ripples caused by the movement of water. They highlight a background of shades of blue or black and create visual motion diagonally across the canvas.

Fire

The power of fire to the Aboriginal people was not only a vital element for staying alive but is also believed to connect the people with their ancestors. Her father told her of the connection of all things in life and explained that her ancestors would experience the same connection to the land as her when feeling the warmth of the fire and looking into its deep colours. Fire was also used in the important act of ‘back burning’, utilised by the Aboriginal people to stimulate the rejuvenation of plant growth and therefore food sources. Sarrita acknowledges all of this in her Fire paintings.

Injecting paint onto the canvas surface, Sarrita recreates the sharp licks of flames in glowing oranges and reds stretching up the length canvas. The contrast of the bright colours on a jet black background creates an immense visual heat and also a cutting contemporary aesthetic.

Bush

Sarrita’s Bush series depict the lush bushlands that grow in parts of Australia. Dense with growth and colour, they provide a stark contrast to the dominating deserts in the heart of Australia. They provide a rich source of plant and animal life and also shelter.

The aerial view of the bushland that Sarrita paints reveals the tangle of plant growth that can be seen from above. Congested and mazelike, the growth and root systems are painted in a way which appeals to the haptic senses. The lush greens are indicative of the abundance of nature and life the bush offers the Australian landscape and its people.

Language of the Earth

This is the earth’s story. It is also the story of black and white upon the land and the history we have created and carved into it by our interactions with one another. The intersections of black and white culture and how they meet, creating a narrative in the land and in history, and then moving on in their individual and collaborative journeys are abstractly depicted.

These paintings thematically diverge from Sarrita’s elemental inspired series. In an abstract way Sarrita references the iconography of the Tingari creation ancestors with her use of strong rectangles. These are then given body with dots and dashes, similar to Morse code. These symbols of communication are haunting in their familiarly, like an ancient language that was once known but now sits dormant at the back of one’s memory. The overall aesthetic is bold and assertive, and just like much iconography in Aboriginal cultures, the ancient now appears contemporary.

 

Earth Cycles

Drawing on the teachings of her influential father, Sarrita recalls the philosophy he taught her – that everything in life is circular. There is no beginning and no end; the connection between people and the world around them in ongoing.

Sarrita echoes her father’s depiction of the Earth Cycles with the repetition of concentric circles across the canvas. The circles and dots identify the connections and relationships found throughout life. Sarrita dots her circles with a stick heavily laded with paint. The paint is so thick that the dots hold form and often contain peaks where the stick left the canvas. The result is prickly, textural and 3-D. Sarrita usually only uses white and another bold colour, such as red, that slowly bleeds its way across the canvas. True to their title, these paintings are full of youthfulness and provide a sharp contemporary aesthetic.

My Country

Sarrita’s latest thematic portrays the country around Katherine, the painter’s country and her heartland. Aptly titled My Country, they are rolling topographic views of the Katherine River that runs through the surrounding gorges, sand hills and plains.

First seeming like computerised geological maps filled with thousands of tiny pixels, the undulations of the troughs and peaks of the land roll across the canvas. The use of colour adds depth and creates identifiable land formations. Lines of painstakingly hand painted dots move in rhythms and like a symphony they work together to define the core of what is behind all of Sarrita’s artworks, her country.