Kudditji Kngwarreye Artworks
Painting his traditional country of Boundary Bore in Utopia, Kudditji Kngwarreye art is present in major national and international collections. His paintings may be purchased online by enquiry.
 Kudditji Kngwarreye | Ankerre – Emu DreamingSold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | Ankerre – Emu Dreaming at AlhalkereSold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | My Country – Dry SeasonSold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | Ankerre – Emu Dreaming at AlhalkereSold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | Alhalkere – KwenpayeSold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | Country – Fire SeriesSold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | My CountrySold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | My CountrySold |  Kudditji Kngwarreye | Ankerre – Emu Dreaming at AlhalkereSold |
Kudditji Kngwarreye
Date of Birth
1938 – 2017
Place of Birth
Lallguora, Utopia, NT
Language
Anmatyerre
Community
Utopia, NT
Who is Kudditji Kngwarreye?
Kudditji Kngwarreye (pronounced goo-beh-chee) is a senior man from the Eastern Anmatyerre country of Alhalkere on the Utopia homelands in the Northern Territory. He was born around 1928, the younger brother of famous Aboriginal artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye. He has painted for over twenty five years.
What country does Kudditji Kngwarreye paint?
Kudditji Kngwarreye paintings represent his traditional country around Boundary Bore, the country for which he is a custodian. Boundary Bore is located just off the Ooratippra Creek in the southeast of the Northern Territory, a distance of about 1200km south-southeast from Darwin.
What are the traditional stories and themes of Kudditji Kngwarreye’s paintings?
Significant throughout this country are the Emu Dreaming sites, where major men’s initiation ceremonies are performed. Emu Dreaming is one of Kudditji’s inherited ancestral totems, and is the inspiration for his art. Visual references to Emu Dreaming, and Men’s Ceremonial Dreamings from Boundary Bore, are always at the heart of artworks from Kudditji Kngwarreye. The artist is represented in major national and international collections and Kudditji has gained worldwide recognition for his powerful interpretations of his ancestral Dreamings.
What is Kudditji Kngwarreye’s painting style?
Using his depth of knowledge of Country, Kudditji began to experiment with acrylic paint to move beyond the traditional pointillist style that he had used before 2003. Taking a heavily laden paint brush and sweeping broadly across the canvas in stages, he began to evoke lyrical images of Country, accentuating the colour and form of the landscape, the depth of the sky in the rainy season and the reds and oranges of the shimmering summer heat. These ground-breaking paintings express Kudditji’s intimate knowledge and love of his country in a richly textured and highly innovative way.
He is known for his large dynamic paintings, saturated with colour and paint, and his considerable creative output has helped expand the realm of traditional story-telling as expressed by Central Desert painters. Kudditji’s great paintings evoke lyrical images of his country using concentrated colour across the fom of the landscape. The artist uses densely applied paint and broad sweeps of colour to creates images of the intense skies of the desert rainy season and the extreme heat of high summer. A sense of immense space can be felt in the paintings.
Aboriginal Art Status
Highly Collectable Artist
“Kudditji (Kngwarreye) makes up the majority of my collection. I’ve been lucky enough to sit with him. Every time I talk about him, I have a smile on my face. Every time I look at his art in my home, I smile. I love that experience. I love him as a person and I’ve only had fleeting experiences. Just the richness of who he is.” Sarrita King
Collections
Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs
Hank Ebes Collection, Melbourne
Macquarie University, NSW
Guilleman and Sordello Collection, France
R. M. Barokh Antiques, Los Angeles, USA
Mbantua Gallery Permanent Collection, Alice Springs
Sarrita King Collection
Corrigan Collection, Sydney
Luciano Benetton Collection, Venice
Gillian & Watson McAllister Collection, Sydney
Pat Corrigan Collection, Sydney
Fondation Burkhardt-Felder Arts et Culture, Motiers, Switzerland
Artbank, Sydney
Solo Exhibitions
1992 Tjukurrpa, Museum fur Volkerkunde, Basel
2003 New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
2004 Waterhole Aboriginal Art, Sofitel Wentworth Hotel Exhibition, Sydney
2004 My Country, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2004 My Country, New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
2005 Waterhole Aboriginal Art, Danks Street, Sydney.
2005 New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
2005 Colours in Country, Art Mob, Hobart, Tasmania
2006 My Country, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2006 Masterwork, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
2006 Kudditji Kngwarreye: New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
2008 Kudditji Kngwarreye, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2009 Kudditji Kngwarreye – Recent Works, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2010 Summer Collection, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2012 Kudditji Kngwarreye and Lorna Napurrula Fencer, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2013 The Master Returns, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2013 Colours of Dreaming | Kudditji Kngwarreye, Mitchell Fine Art, Brisbane
2013 Kudditji: Landscapes in the Family Tradition, Booker-Lowe Gallery, Houston
2014 Earth + Sky, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2014 Kudditji Kngwarreye, Japingka Gallery, Perth
2016 Kudditji Kngwarreye, Mandel Aboriginal Art Gallery, Melbourne
2016 Singing Up Country – Kudditji Kngwarreye, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2021 Kudditji Kngwarreye | the enduring master, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydne
Group Exhibitions
1990 Art Dock, Contemporary Art from Australia, Noumea, New Caledonia
1991 Central Australian Aboriginal Art and Craft Exhibition, Araluen 2005 Big Country, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs Centre, Alice Springs NT
1992 Tjukurrpa, Museum fur Volkerkunde, Basel, Switzerland
2002 The Contemporaries, Contemporary Artspace, Brisbane QLD
2004 Two Senior Men, Art Mob Gallery, Tasmania
2004 Australian Exhibition Centre, Chicago USA
2004 Heartbeat – Living Country, Wentworth Hotel, Sydney NSW
2004 Spirit of Colour, Depot Gallery, Sydney NSW
2005 Fresh from the Central Desert, Canberra Grammar School, Canberra ACT
2007 Artists of Utopia
2012 The Colourists: Kudditji Kngwarreye and Lorna Napurrula Fencer, Japingka Gallery, Perth
2013 Landmarks and Law Grounds – Men of the Desert
2014 Vast Interiors, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2015 From the Vaults – highlights from the Collectors Gallery, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2015 Signs and Traces, Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Cultural Institute Zamek, Poznan
2016 Spoilt for Choice – a director’s choice exhibition, Kate Gwen Gallery, Sydney
2017 Gems from the Stockroom, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2018 Welcome TWO (Thompson Street), FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2019 Spirit of Place – Amanda Westley & Kudditji Kngwarreye, Japingka Gallery, Perth
2019 Large Showroom; Large Works, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2019 Defining Tradition | the colourists, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2020 Small Things from the Desert, Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane
2020 Blue July, Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane
2020 Top Ten – Our Most Popular Artists 2019, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2020 Still in the Desert, Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane
2020 Kudditji Kame Kngwarreye & Idris Murphy, Mitchell Fine Art Gallery, Brisbane
2020 Colours of Spring, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2021 Big Names Little Paintings, Cooee Art Gallery, Sydney
2021 Top Ten Artists 2020, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2021 Desert Colours 2021, Incinerator Art Space, Sydney
2021 Fondation Burkhardt-Felder Arts et Culture, Moitiers, Switzerland
2021 Across the Top 2021, Art Mob, Hobart
2021 Private Collection, Cooee Art, Redfern
View
Kudditji Kngwarreye 2014 Exhibition
Spirit of Place – Amanda Westley & Kudditji Kngwarreye – 2019
Read
A Salute To Kudditji Kngwarreye
Links
Wikipedia – Kudditji Kngwarreye
Youtube – Kudditji Kngwarreye