Product Description
size is 2.1 metre x 1.2 metre
Also available in black+ white $3300.00 - Artists Proofs x 6 Editions $7700 also available - Postage to be arranged upon purchase
Arone produces paintings, sculpture and prints that express a passion for country, spirituality, sexuality and politics.
His path is one that redefines his connections through art mediums. The spiritual is actualised through art and his response is one of ‘working it through’ an intuitive process. Arone is able to express a unique spiritual response to country that has a harmony in connecting disparate worlds.
His subjects are sourced in nature and represent a cultural responsibility with an expression of contemporary art. Arone’s indigenous links are with the Kokomidiji of Cape York, around Laura, the site of renowned rock art galleries filled with graceful drawings of quinkans. Laura is known as a place of Aboriginal magic and sorcery; it is also the location for the biannual Angnarra Aboriginal Dance Festival. Walking through this country has a palpable effect on Arone. He feels a physical reaction to sacred country that helps forge relationships with kinship, a sense of self and ‘renewing the dreaming’.
Arone’s art is not governed by the same barriers and protocols that govern traditional Aboriginal art, but is placed in the context of the contemporary urban.
This major work was commissioned by Cairns Regional Gallery for its Centenary of Federation celebrations in 2001. It reflects Arone Meeks’ ability to coalesce traditional indigenous and European art traditions.
“Having grown up around Cairns, and now permanently based here, it was important for me to identify some of the elements that make up this area of Far North Queensland. From the rainforest, depicting plant life such as the wild ginger, frangipani, flowering gums and lawyer cane, through to the scrub hen mounding the rainforest mulch for its nest and the footprints of the cassowary.
These images of the rainforest are connected by an extended dancing/singing figure decorated with fertility designs and embracing his environment. To the left of the dancer begins the mangrove with its rich bed of organic sea-life and precious sea-grasses, vitally important to the dugong, that mate here. Above, three small sea turtle begin their journey.
To the right a bush spirit bends and weaves through the rainforest. His flowering leaves move in the breeze towards the centre of the print as he caresses the boy’s head. He draws the youth towards a greater spiritual and compassionate understanding of his cultural identity.
Spanning the artwork floats a figure adorned with skin designs held together with a membrane-like fish trap, reminding us of human frailty. Overall this work is about our relationship to the environment and, on a personal level, is a documentation of life in Far North Queensland as an indigenous person. The voice of cultural awareness from the boy announces the beginning of his growth, and identifies his connection to the spirit of things that are.”
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