It is with great pleasure and enormous excitement that Annandale Galleries will begin its program for 2005 with a groundbreaking show of completely new work, facilitated by the endeavour of Arnaud Serval. As a precursor into his unparalleled collection of Aboriginal art, which Annandale Galleries will be exclusively opening up to the public over the coming months, Serval has made possible through his tenacity and shared vision the production of an art whose current form has previously never been seen before.
Wamulu, a yellow flower, has been traditionally used for ground painting ceremony in the western desert; a process where the wamulu is gathered, cut up, and then mixed with an ochre before being applied on to the ground in accordance with the design/pattern of the specific dreaming being portrayed. Yet under Serval’s guidance, the possibility of bringing these images to a far wider audience has been put into practice by four lawmen and artists. By adding a binder into the mix of wamulu and ochre, 16 works have been produced for this exhibition, which can be seen as the transferral of ground painting onto board, the metamorphosis of ceremonial painting in situ, onto an accessible, aesthetically evocative medium.
The production of the works is a very communal procedure, with all the artists participating. Where a certain Dreaming is specific to one in particular, he will be responsible for outlining the design, while the others will help apply the wamulu onto the board. Through this traditional method, the sensation and authenticity of an actual ground painting from which designs for the acrylic dot painting movement largely takes its subject matter has been made possible.
The four artists will be in attendance for the opening and will execute an actual ground painting in the front gallery. Precedents for this include the Pompidou museum in 1989 and La Villette in Paris as well as occasional works done for other Australian museum exhibitions but to our knowledge it will be the first undertaking of it’s kind in a commercial gallery.
For information press/visuals , interview with the artists contact Annandale Galleries A full colour 28 page catalogue is available on request
