Sun Setting in the Warm Glow, 2007, Shane Pickett
Acrylic on linen 122cm x 183cm
Provenance: Cooee Art Auctions, Sydney. Diane Mossenson Fine Art, WA Cat No. WAC 185/07 Private Collection, NSW
The pre-eminent Nyoongar artist of his time, Shane Pickett was born in Quairading (Ballardung Country) in the south-west of Western Australia. Combining his deep knowledge and concern for Nyoongar culture with a confident and individual style of gestural abstraction, Pickett’s paintings resonate with a profound but subtle immediacy. They are complex visual metaphors for the persistence of Nyoongar culture against the colonising tide of modernity.
In this work, the artist evokes the spirit of his country while removing almost all recognisable elements of the landscape. He draws the viewers attention to the notion of a horizon while colour plays across dramatically smeared impasto surface. Juxtaposed are sections of gentler tonal layering and threads of emblematic dotting across the canvas. Pickett was selected as a finalist in numerous major art prizes, including the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. In 2006, he was awarded first prizes at the Sunshine Coast Art Prize and Joondalup Invitation Art Award. (1)