“Snake living in the Sandhills. It eats and lives in the hole. When big mob com in, they make smooth tracks going round. Sometimes they might fight ove a female snake. Sometimes the female runs away, leaves them fighting.” Jimmy Pike

Jimmy Pike lived in the bush on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert of north Western Australia where he painted producing the art for which he became so well known. Born in 1940, in remote sandhill country, Jimmy is a member of the Walmajarri people, one of the last groups to leave the desert and settle on cattle stations in the Kimberley’s during the 1950s. He spent his childhood as a nomad moving with his family around the various waterholes that were the focal points of their arid country. This country, its ancient culture and symbols are the things that inspired Jimmy’s work. For many years, Jimmy Pike supplemented his income by carving and selling artefacts. It wasn’t until 1981 that he was first introduced to Western-style painting and discovered his talent for art. A few years later he set up his isolated camp in the desert where he painted. He worked in the open, resting his paintings on a rough work table he made from old planks. He stored his art and other materials under a heavy canvas fly, where he also took refuge from the rare seasonal falls of rain.

Jimmy Pike’s paintings of the physical and spiritual quality of his traditional Walmajarri country added a new dynamism to the central position of landscape in Australian art. They project a new dimension to our understanding of connections of place and identity. The artist’s themes of the intricacies of desert landscape, the visual character of the changing seasons and the particularities of Aboriginal spirituality have transformed this extremely isolated area of the northern part of Australia into a tangible experience and rare encounter with its beauty and sacredness.

Jimmy Pike is one of Australia’s most famous Aboriginal artists. He is represented in the collections of all of the major Australian public art galleries and museums.

Text courtesy Australian Art Network

COLLECTIONS :

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Australian National Gallery, Canberra Parliament House Art Collection
Australian Museum, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Queensland Art Gallery