Untitled, 2003
gouache on acid-free crescent board
81.0
x 102.0
cm
(PB WB 2003-30)
Provenance
Grantpirrie, Sydney
Private collection, Sydney
Exhibited
'Walking the Line', Grantpirrie, Sydney, 2003
Literature
'Walking the Line', exh.cat., Sydney, 2003, illus.p.12
Russell Storer, Tony Oliver, Michiel Dolk, Frances Kofod, Marcia Langton, 'Paddy Bedford', MCA, Sydney, 2006, exh.cat., illus. p.176
This image comes from Paddy Bedford's first exhibition of his works on paper; 'Paddy Bedford, Walking the Line', at GrantPirrie in 2003. This well-documented body of work was produced in gouache, pastel, pencil and crayon applied to either white or black Crescent cardboard. It stands distinct from Bedford's works on canvas in the more subdued, natural pigments of the East Kimberley, featuring an unusually bright palette of red, blue and yellow.
Working in the medium of gouache has allowed drawing and painting to converge upon strong lines that are diverted to equally strong colour. The typical dots that are usually found in Bedford's canvases are absent from his work on paper, where forms stand alone, opening and closing in a slippage between figure and ground.
In a generously illustrated catalogue published to accompany the important 2003 exhibition, senior curators and critics were given forum to comment. Their collective writing attests to a surprising but equally potent spirituality carried through these previously unseen colours; where Brenda Croft described a 'limpid blue, shining forth from its black ground', Laura Murray Cree found 'soakages for blood and grieving' in Bedford's powerful red.
In these images, where east Kimberley art traditions meet modern materials, comparisons to western art can be strongly felt. Dr Georges Petitjean wrote, 'The symbiosis of traditional and contemporary painting, of traditional knowledge and new insights is especially evident in the blue, yellow and red coloured drawings. Indeed these works remind us of the iconic realizations of De Stijl and Mondrian.' (2003)
The senior Gija lawman, Paddy Bedford was introduced to modern art materials in 1998, in the founding days of the Jirrawun artists' corporation. The year 1998 saw Bedford and the two senior Gija artists, Hector Jandany and Rusty Peters travel to Melbourne, Victoria in exhibition. On this trip the men were given access to a studio, where they produced the first Gija works in gouache. Acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales for their Yiribana collection, they stand as the Jirrawun suite; inclusive are fifteen such works on paper by Bedford. Bedford's work in gouache is considered to be representative of the early energy and spirit of this time.
