Verdijk always went his own way as an artist and he took inspiration from the international abstract movements of the 1950s, as well as from Oriental philosophy and encounters during his travels to Africa, Japan and America. As a result the work of Gerard Verdijk is so varied it can hardly be pinned down to one single movement. After moving to the French countryside in 1994, Verdijk’s paintings take a new distinct direction, combining elements from earlier works on paper, universal symbols from ancient cultures and advanced philosophical insights acquired during his previous travels. Signifying a true maturation of Gerard Verdijk’s artistic practice. The philosophical approach to Verdijk’s work deepened, resulting in a stronger connection between the depicted objects and negative space. A duality materialized between concrete objects and the oppositional void that surrounds them; between the shadows and the objects that cast them. The late paintings by Gerard Verdijk show a great restraint in minimalist compositions, yet they are filled with layered and sensuous color fields that fill the voids around those solid objects and shapes.

SmithDavidson Gallery is the official Gallery for the Estate of Gerard Verdijk with access to the full collection.
For more information about the artist and available works please contact the gallery.

Verdijk always went his own way as an artist and he took inspiration from the international abstract movements of the 1950s, as well as from Oriental philosophy and encounters during his travels to Africa, Japan and America. As a result the work of Gerard Verdijk is so varied it can hardly be pinned down to one single movement. After moving to the French countryside in 1994, Verdijk’s paintings take a new distinct direction, combining elements from earlier works on paper, universal symbols from ancient cultures and advanced philosophical insights acquired during his previous travels. Signifying a true maturation of Gerard Verdijk’s artistic practice. The philosophical approach to Verdijk’s work deepened, resulting in a stronger connection between the depicted objects and negative space. A duality materialised between concrete objects and the oppositional void that surrounds them; between the shadows and the objects that cast them. The late paintings by Gerard Verdijk show a great restraint in minimalist compositions, yet they are filled with layered and sensuous color fields that fill the voids around those solid objects and shapes.

SmithDavidson gallery is the official Gallery for the Estate of Gerard Verdijk with access to the full collection.
For more information about the artist and available works please contact the gallery.

Verdijk always went his own way as an artist and he took inspiration from the international abstract movements of the 1950s, as well as from Oriental philosophy and encounters during his travels to Africa, Japan and America. As a result the work of Gerard Verdijk is so varied it can hardly be pinned down to one single movement. After moving to the French countryside in 1994, Verdijk’s paintings take a new distinct direction, combining elements from earlier works on paper, universal symbols from ancient cultures and advanced philosophical insights acquired during his previous travels. Signifying a true maturation of Gerard Verdijk’s artistic practice. The philosophical approach to Verdijk’s work deepened, resulting in a stronger connection between the depicted objects and negative space. A duality materialized between concrete objects and the oppositional void that surrounds them; between the shadows and the objects that cast them. The late paintings by Gerard Verdijk show a great restraint in minimalist compositions, yet they are filled with layered and sensuous color fields that fill the voids around those solid objects and shapes.

SmithDavidson Gallery is the official Gallery for the Estate of Gerard Verdijk with access to the full collection.
For more information about the artist and available works please contact the gallery.

Verdijk always went his own way as an artist and he took inspiration from the international abstract movements of the 1950s, as well as from Oriental philosophy and encounters during his travels to Africa, Japan and America. As a result the work of Gerard Verdijk is so varied it can hardly be pinned down to one single movement. After moving to the French countryside in 1994, Verdijk’s paintings take a new distinct direction, combining elements from earlier works on paper, universal symbols from ancient cultures and advanced philosophical insights acquired during his previous travels. Signifying a true maturation of Gerard Verdijk’s artistic practice. The philosophical approach to Verdijk’s work deepened, resulting in a stronger connection between the depicted objects and negative space. A duality materialised between concrete objects and the oppositional void that surrounds them; between the shadows and the objects that cast them. The late paintings by Gerard Verdijk show a great restraint in minimalist compositions, yet they are filled with layered and sensuous color fields that fill the voids around those solid objects and shapes.

“…Kokoro is originally a psychological term, meaning ‘heart’, ‘soul’, ‘spirit’, ‘mind’, ‘thought’; it later became to denote the kernel or essence of a thing…The kokoro wants to know itself…”, from ‘The World of Zen’, selected, edited and with an introduction by Nancy Wilson Ross, Vintage Books, New York, 1960, chapter 6 ‘The Awakening of a New Consciousness’ by D.T. Suzuki, pp. 227, 228.

SmithDavidson Gallery is the official Gallery for the Estate of Gerard Verdijk with access to the full collection.
For more information about the artist and available works please contact the gallery.

Verdijk always went his own way as an artist and he took inspiration from the international abstract movements of the 1950s, as well as from Oriental philosophy and encounters during his travels to Africa, Japan and America. As a result the work of Gerard Verdijk is so varied it can hardly be pinned down to one single movement. After moving to the French countryside in 1994, Verdijk’s paintings take a new distinct direction, combining elements from earlier works on paper, universal symbols from ancient cultures and advanced philosophical insights acquired during his previous travels. Signifying a true maturation of Gerard Verdijk’s artistic practice. The philosophical approach to Verdijk’s work deepened, resulting in a stronger connection between the depicted objects and negative space. A duality materialized between concrete objects and the oppositional void that surrounds them; between the shadows and the objects that cast them. The late paintings by Gerard Verdijk show a great restraint in minimalist compositions, yet they are filled with layered and sensuous color fields that fill the voids around those solid objects and shapes.

SmithDavidson Gallery is the official Gallery for the Estate of Gerard Verdijk with access to the full collection.
For more information about the artist and available works please contact the gallery.

In the 1960s, Gerard Verdijk began with his Black and White Paintings, a series of black and white paintings that marked an important step in his artistic development. These works consisted of strong, contrasting compositions in which he used only black and white. With this limited color palette, he focused on the purity of form and line, creating an almost graphic, minimalist effect. The Black and White Paintings reflect Verdijk's early fascination with balance and contrast, as well as his search for essence and simplicity. These works laid the foundation for his later, more meditative and geometric oeuvre, in which space, rhythm, and time became central themes.

In WN, Verdijk used monochromatic tones to explore contrasts and spatial relationships, a technique that became foundational in his career. This piece illustrates his fascination with the balance of form and emptiness, evoking themes of duality and structure that he pursued throughout his artistic journey.

SmithDavidson Gallery is the official Gallery for the Estate of Gerard Verdijk with access to the full collection.
For more information about the artist and available works please contact the gallery.

Emily Kam Kngwarray began painting at the age of seventy-nine and in just eight years completed no fewer than four thousand works of art. Yet, she never went to art school, never looked through art books, and rarely went to galleries. Her first experience of serious painting was the making of boldly fluid marks on the greased skin of her countrywomen. Her artistic achievement, miraculous in its strength and powerful appeal, owes much to the inspiration of Indigenous spirituality and the magical creation stories that underpin its belief systems.

This painting, Alhalkere, as all of her work, was painted horizontally (like the painter Jackson Pollock who intuitively accessed the spiritual realm) and evidence a horizontal consciousness not a hierarchical one. Knowledge is not privileged over wisdom. There is a balance between knowledge and wisdom – the knowledge gained through a life well lived and the wisdom of ancient stories that represent the intimacy of living on this world. The patterns and diversities of life compliment each other and are in balance.

‘Alhalkere’, Emily answered when questioned by Rodney Gooch about her imagery is, ‘Whole lot, that’s whole lot, that’s what I paint, whole lot’. Not only the place of her birth, Alhalkere was ultimately the nexus of everything that empowered Kngwarreye’s life, reflecting her participation in ceremony and a lifetime of traditional cultural practice, this small triangular shaped land was the place and the law that she continually re-created in her art.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

SmithDavidson Gallery represents a wide range of Australian First Nations Art, please contact for additional information.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

SmithDavidson Gallery represents a wide range of Australian First Nations Art, please contact for additional information.

The square patterns in this painting refer to different stories from the traditional Tingari story cycle. Walala depicts the holy places from the Dream Time (time of creation). These holy places are spread over the countryside west of Lake Makaay, including Mina Mina salt lake. This work can be counted among his most impressive, using a limited palette of blacks and whites with red (ochres). Characterized by a combination of traditional patterns and a high degree of refined abstraction.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

Kudditji mixes his colors directly onto the canvas, layering his paint into a patchwork formation. Often his works will change throughout the day as different light sources draw out different colors and elements, whilst others recede. It is in this depth that his story of country and the story of the Emu resides, the complexity and vastness of his landscape only accessible in patches as they come to light.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

George's distinctive style represents the claypan of Mamultjulkunga, a soakage water site north-west of Lake Mackay where the artist's father passed away. Two Tingari men made camp at this site, one man from the Tjangala kinship subsection and the other man from the Tjapaltjarri kinship subsection. After rain the claypan becomes a freshwater lake. A fleshy sub-shrub known Tecticornia Verrucosa is prominent in the area and its seed (mungilypa or samphire) are collected and ground into a paste and cooked on coals to make a form of unleavened bread.

Please note that all Australian First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

SmithDavidson Gallery represents a wide range of Australian First Nations Art, please contact for additional information.

Please note that all Australian First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

SmithDavidson Gallery represents a wide range of Australian First Nations Art, please contact for additional information.

Early field trips were to undertake photographic assignments documenting the lives and cultural heritage of indigenous people and native wildlife. Later field trips focused on collecting and commissioning artworks from indigenous people, many of whom had become close friends over the years. Reference: “Everywhere Everywhen Art Artist Stories” by McLood, Vaughan Adam, circa 2022.

Mina Mina is the area depicted in this painting. It is located far west of Yuendumu and is very important to the Napangardi/Napanangka women. These women and their brothers are the custodians of this dreaming and of this area. During the Dreamtime, digging sticks (Kana) magically emerged from the ground at Mina Mina, equipping a host of ancestral women for their journeys across the vast land. The tall desert oaks (Kurrkapi), which grow near Mina Mina, symbolize the rise of the digging sticks. As the women danced joyfully in long lines through the desert, they held the digging sticks with outstretched arms. In this way she created important sites.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

Warangkula was one of the senior custodians of the major Rain Dreaming sites at Tjikarri and Kalipinypa in the desert bordering on Western Australia. This early work,, one of a number devoted to the subject by the artist, shows the rain as meandering lines through the middle of painting, weaving between water soakage sites represented by the sets of concentric circles. The interlocking meanders to either side represent lightning. Warankula's characteristic stippled application of paint produces a vibrant image reflecting the fecund nature of the landscape after rain: the patches of dotting indicate fields on native bush floods.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

Acclaimed as a cultural leader and the seminal figure in establishing the East Kimberley School, Rover Thomas holds a primary place in the history of the Indigenous art movement.

Rover settled at Warmun in 1973, the year before Cyclone Tracy laid waste to Darwin. On the morning of Christmas Eve 1974, the cyclone moved directly over Darwin with wind gusts reaching 240 kilometers per hour. Ninety percent of homes were destroyed or badly damaged, and over sixty-five lives were lost. It was the inspiration for this striking and dramatic work. The fearsome winds started from the direction of Darwin harbour, flattened all buildings and trees in the city, moved across the Kimberley's and finally ran out at Port Headland on the West Australian coast.

This important work was created during Rover's extremely well documented visit to Melbourne in June 1995. It is characterized by spacious planes of textured ochre. The prominent black path is a storm traveling from the east. It gains in strength as the Willy Willys fuse together to create a frightening wind tearing through the Great Sandy Desert. The concentric circle represents the artist's encampment. The white dots serve only to create emphasis or to draw the eye along pathways of time and movement, following the forms of the land. The painting is dynamic yet contemplative and sombre. The predominant use of black conveys a startling, strangely emotional, intensity. The viewer observes the unfolding events whilst becoming immersed in an ancient and timeless landscape.

Rover Thomas died on April 11, 1998, and was posthumously awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Western Australia. The power of his work is reflected in the attention it commanded over his twenty-year career. Since his first exhibition in 1987, there has been a constant demand for his paintings, which are now represented in all major galleries in Australia. He is recognized as one of the most important figures in contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art. His legacy is a substantial body of significant paintings which provide an enduring, unique, insight into the spiritual landscape of the Kimberley region and the human relationships and events within it.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

Drawing from two very different sources of knowledge, and painting with a deep sense of history and cultural responsibility, Paddy Bedford mapped the rich history of the east Kimberley using stories from his father’s, mother’s and uncle’s country. Within his canvases, historical events together with the more mundane stories about daily life on cattle stations co-exist with profound and lyrical understanding of the land and its creation stories. Bedford explored the important stories from its past whilst painting the bones of the landscape with the waterholes, stockyards and roads that he traversed throughout his life. Painted in 2001, Camel Gap, documents an evolution in the artist’s painting style, moving beyond the more familiar ochre representations of country produced by earlier East Kimberley artists, and predicting his further innovative changes in palette and technique.

Camel Gap, also known as 'Gernawarliyan' to the local Gija people, is found in the traditional country of the artist’s mother. Located to the south-east of Bedford Downs station and adjacent to Marty’s bore, a few kilometers east of the Springvale – Lansdowne Road, it is a place where in mythological times, the goanna 'Garndoowoolany' camped in the 'ngarranggarni' (Dreaming). Garndoowoolany called out to 'Marranyi', the dingo, whom he saw at the top of the hill. It was here that Marranyi got stuck and became part of the rock. Its English name refers both to the shape of the hill and, also to the Afghan cameleers who, in the early twentieth century, travelled past this place on their journey south from the port at Wyndham to remote Kimberley communities and further afield for trade.

Related work:
"Camel Gap", 2004, ochres and pigment on linen, 150 x 180 cm, in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program by Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, 2012

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

According to anthropologist Dr Frances Kofod: ’Janterrji is a place where the artist's family have a small outstation. It is near a water-hole known by Europeans as Dolly Hole. It is an important place where dreamtime women conducted their special ceremonies.'

Dolly Hole refers to a deep waterhole located on Bedford Downs station, south of Warmun in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Like much of the artist's work, this painting sees Bedford bring together his extensive geographical knowledge of the physical landscape - roads, rivers, hills, and stock camps - combined with important ancestral Dreamings that had been passed down to him; stories of the creation of man and animal, spirits, traditions, and the law of the land. For Bedford, painting was as much an expression of country as it was of cultural identity.

Bedford created a unique aesthetic, juxtaposing bold forms with vast, stark expanses of paint. Produced three years before his death, Dolly Hole sees the artist paring back to a more essential palette of black and white, eliminating his earlier use of ochre hues. Here the contrast of positive and negative spaces is emphasized, but so too is the distinction between striking areas of dense, dark color and the softened, muted washes of blue and white, suggesting the tension between strength and sensitivity in the artist's own life.

The subject matter of Bedford’s paintings is drawn from the artist’s two main and very different sources of knowledge and experience. The dramatic Kimberley landscape around Bedford Downs and the historical events that took place there and intersect with the ever present Ngarranggarni or Dreaming, the parallel time dimension where the landscape, animals and plants were created and in which the laws determining behavior and tradition were established. His paintings also present a dichotomy of viewing, powerful and bold forms, reminiscent of physical features of the Kimberley, are surrounded by expansive delicate washes of muted color, presenting a contrast between powerful physicality and great sensitivity.

Please note that all Australian First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

Freddie painted for Waringarri Arts from the late 1980s developing his own personal style working exclusively with earth pigment until the mid 1990s when he began experimenting with color. His more vivid interpretations of his country were first exhibited with Frank Watters in Sydney, and later Rob Gould in Melbourne. His works are maps of his country imbued with its history and spiritual connections. They are typified by expanses of flat color delineated by white dotting, according to topography and geology. Included are the black soil country, hills, creeks, watercourses and waterholes, roads, stockyards, homesteads and Dreaming places of his travels.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

SmithDavidson Gallery represents a wide range of Australian First Nations Art, please contact for additional information.

Freddie Timms spent his childhood at Bow River and Lissadell Stations where he worked as a stockman, handyman and fencer. He left Lissadell Station in 1985 and settled at the new community at Warmun where he began to paint, influenced by elders including Rover Thomas and Hector Jandanay.

Freddie Timms has become known for aerial map like visions of country that are less concerned with ancestral associations as with tracing the responses and refuges of the Gidja people as they encountered the ruthlessness and brutality of colonization. However, his political nature is characterized by more intimate interpretations of the experience rather than overtly political statements. In what appeared as a new and beautiful sense of irregular geometry, soft yet boldly defined blocks of color the area. The stark black color fields are contrasted by a more colorful palette than the natural earth pigments widely adopted by other East Kimberley artists

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.

SmithDavidson Gallery represents a wide range of Australian First Nations Art, please contact for additional information.

The Wati Kutjarra Tjukurrpa (Two Goanna Men Dreaming) mythology relates to the offense of moral laws by a debauched old man and the revenge and retribution enacted by his two sons. The two brothers, who became Dreaming ancestors, travelled across the desert country and in doing so created natural landforms and sacred sites by leaving their presence at places they visited.

This painting shows the flat top hills which extend across from Balgo to Broome. This area is called the Wati Kadjara. As an aerial view the different areas represent the following: The yellow area is the Great Sandy Desert, the red are is one of the many flat top mountains, and the black area is the initiation place for young boys Warbuton.

Please note that all First Nations Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view. This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.