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Dances never before seen outside the Kimberley will mark tomorrow's opening of an exhibition of works by legendary Aboriginal artist Jimmy Pike.

Ten close relatives and kinsmen and women of the late Jimmy Pike will perform two sacred dances commemorating the country and the mythic places of the Dreaming that are the subject of much of Jimmy Pike's art and life.

Decorated with ochre body-paint and accompanied by ‘singing boomerangs' and singers, the performers will recall sacred events of the Jumangkarni (Dreaming) as a tribute to the creativity of an extraordinary artist and to the enduring power of his art.

Jimmy Pike's drawings, never exhibited before, will be shown at The University of Western Australia's Berndt Museum from tomorrow, Friday 29 June at 6.30pm.

The 52 works on paper, made between 1990 and 2000, draw on the knowledge and skills Jimmy Pike learned growing up as a hunter-gatherer in a bush camp on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert.

With his people, the Walmajarri, Jimmy Pike was one of the last to leave the desert and settle on cattle stations in the Kimberley during the 1950s.  During his early boyhood he and his family walked from waterhole to waterhole and his art reflects the desert landscape, the changing seasons and Aboriginal spirituality.

Jimmy Pike's Artlines is a selection of vibrant felt-tip pen drawings, but Jimmy Pike is best known for his acrylic paintings on canvas and the internationally recognised designs he created for fashion label Desert Designs.

Jimmy Pike made the drawings in the UWA exhibition at his isolated camp near Broome.

He is one of Australia's most famous Indigenous artists and is represented in the collections of the major Australian public galleries and museums.

Jimmy Pike's Artlines will be shown until 15 December 2012.  The Berndt Museum is in the Dr Harold Schenberg Arts Centre in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery on campus.

RSVP for opening required or call (+61 8) 6488 3707.

Media references

Eve-Anne O'Regan (Marketing, UWA Cultural Precinct)  (+61 8)  6488 3709
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 3229  /  (+61 4) 00 700 783