ROVER THOMAS

Alongside the main exhibition, Fondation Opale has inaugurated a new permanent space dedicated to the Collection Bérengère Primat.

The first installation is dedicated to Rover Thomas, born around 1926 in the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia, and who passed away in 1998 in Warmun, Kimberley.

Like many Aboriginal artists, Rover Thomas began painting quite late in life, after working in a cattle ranch.

On Christmas Eve 1974, Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin. Since this city was considered by First Nations of the Kimberley to be the centre of Euro­pean culture, and since cyclones, rain, and storms are generally asso­ciated with the ancestral Rainbow Serpent, the eiders interpreted the event as the anger of the Serpent in response to the wounds caused by colonisation, prompting them to revive and strengthen their cultural practices.

This event had a profound impact on Rover Thomas’ life. ln a dream, the spirit of his late aunt told him the details of her journey after death. ln the years following this dream, Rover Thomas, with the help of his uncle Paddy Jaminji, created his own Balga (ceremonial dances and songs), which became the Gurrir Gurrir ceremony.

While mythology and traditional stories play an important role in Rover Thomas’ paintings, they offer a unique view of the physical and spiri­tual landscape of the Kimberley, as well as the human relationships and events that unfold there.

His pared-down imagery and powerful spatial compositions map the land, its features such as craters or the many lakes and waterholes of the Kimberley, or even our galaxy, in charcoal-black and brown and yellow ochres.

ln less than a decade, Rover Thomas established himself as one of the most influential Australian painters of the 20th century and represented Australia in 1990 at the Venice Biennale.