Artist Audrey Tulimiero Welch had the opportunity to live in Western Australia with her family from 2011 to 2016. It was during those five years that she first learned about the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over the country and are known to the Indigenous people there as "songlines." During a walkabout-a ritual journey-the name of every plant, rock, and waterhole is sung out. As art critic Richard Speer says, in his essay on Welch's exhibition, with their songlines they have for millennia "melded music, navigation, and cosmology, singing the very world into being." Even more interesting to Welch, and relevant to her art practice, is the implication that a songline is both a map and wayfinder. For the Indigenous Australians, according to travel writer Bruce Chatwin, land is not hemmed in by frontiers but rather is conceived as "an interlocking network of lines or way through; all their words for 'country' are the same as their words for 'line.'"
Image Credit: Audrey Tulimiero Welch, Cosmic Dance, 2021
Acrylic, plaster, ink on canvas, 48 x 96 inches (diptych)
show less
Image Credit: Audrey Tulimiero Welch, Cosmic Dance, 2021
Acrylic, plaster, ink on canvas, 48 x 96 inches (diptych)
Artist Audrey Tulimiero Welch had the opportunity to live in Western Australia with her family from 2011 to 2016. It was during those five years that she first learned about the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over the country and are known to the Indigenous people there as "songlines." During a walkabout-a ritual journey-the name of every plant, rock, and waterhole is sung out. As art critic Richard Speer says, in his essay on Welch's exhibition, with their songlines they have for millennia "melded music, navigation, and cosmology, singing the very world into being." Even more interesting to Welch, and relevant to her art practice, is the implication that a songline is both a map and wayfinder. For the Indigenous Australians, according to travel writer Bruce Chatwin, land is not hemmed in by frontiers but rather is conceived as "an interlocking network of lines or way through; all their words for 'country' are the same as their words for 'line.'"
Image Credit: Audrey Tulimiero Welch, Cosmic Dance, 2021
Acrylic, plaster, ink on canvas, 48 x 96 inches (diptych)
read more
Image Credit: Audrey Tulimiero Welch, Cosmic Dance, 2021
Acrylic, plaster, ink on canvas, 48 x 96 inches (diptych)
show less
Date/Times:
Nancy Toomey Fine Art
5 Upcoming Events
1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
The Best Events
Every Week in Your Inbox
From Our Sponsors
UPCOMING EVENTS
Great suggestion! We'll be in touch.
Event reviewed successfully.