Deutscher and Hackett

A fundamental purpose of the paintings of Paddy Bedford was to transmit knowledge of the features, geography and sacred narratives connected to his Country. His works also recount the more everyday experiences of life on cattle stations in the Kimberley. As one commentator notes, they are ‘drawn from the artist’s two very different sources of knowledge: historical events and the Ngarranggarni, the parallel time-dimension in which all things were created and the laws of human behaviour were laid down.’1 These dual sources underpin an evolving repertoire of designs and motifs.

Bedford frequently revisited particular themes and subjects, returning repeatedly to the stories entrusted to him by his family. His paintings can be understood as variations on a theme – an approach Tony Oliver compares to that of a jazz musician: ‘The artist revisits the same themes in his paintings, creating new arrangements, but their underlying narrative does not alter.’2

Located north-east of Bedford Downs, the site of Queensland Creek lies adjacent to the Wilson River. The area is characterised by creeks and watercourses traversing open country, with the Durack Range rising to the east and an enclosed escarpment to the south-west. It was from the topographical features and cultural significance of this landscape that Bedford drew profound inspiration.

This striking early canvas, produced in 1998 – his first year of painting – and executed in a characteristic Kimberley ochre palette, reveals the artist’s initial exploration of the tension between graphic form and the rectangular edge of the canvas, a dynamic developed more fully in later works. Here, Bedford positions the principal motifs close to the corners and edges of the frame, evoking a compelling interplay of presence and absence, density and space. Inspired by rocks and other amorphous forms in the Kimberley landscape, he creates a symbiosis between bold, powerful shapes and a carefully balanced composition. Dominant forms in red and black ochre anchor the corners, while the open spaces between them are lightly infilled with yellow ochre pigment, producing a surface that emanates a soft, resonant luminosity.
 
1. Petitjean, G., Paddy Bedford – Crossing Frontiers, AAMU, Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht, 2010, p. 35
2. Oliver, T., et al., Rhapsodies in Country, Grant Pirrie, Sydney, 2002, unpaginated
 
CRISPIN GUTTERIDGE