MY MOTHER’S COUNTRY – Acrylic on Belgian Linen 2006

Artist: BARBARA WEIR

Cat#: PGUT007

Size: 120×90

Medium: Painting

Barbara has a repertoire of painting subjects that include Seed and Grasses Dreaming, Ceremonial Body Painting and recollections of her mother, Minnie Motorcar Pwerle. This painting is in honour of Minnie’s Dreaming Country in the Alyawarr region near Utopia in the Northern Territory. It was painted in the year of Minnie’s death, 2006.
The painting style of this magnificent work, namely very fine dotting combined with the suggestion of underpainting associated with Secret Womens Business reflects traditional sand painting designed for sacred ceremony.
At the beginning of the contemporary Aboriginal Art movement, the early painters avoided the sensitivity of painting sacred/secret subject matter by overpainting the sacred with additional layers of non-contentious imagery to avoid offense.
This is one of Barbara’s great paintings that reflects the origins of contemporary Aboriginal Art and deftly and passionately portrays her mother’s country including suggestions of sites of sacred ceremony with great sensitivity and portrayal of the twin cyclical attributes of the land itself, both arid and fertile.