Jack Britten
Untitled 2003
Natural ochre on canvas 45 x120cm
Catalogue:485-02
Jack Britten was born at Tickelara in the east Kimberley in 1921. He was a senior Gija lawman. As a boy he was taken to work as a stockman and later as a road worker. In 1982 he moved to Frog Hollow, south of Warmun Community, to help establish the Worranginy Outstation. Jack's painting focused on his country, its origins, its ceremonies and ancestral figures.
Britten began painting early in life. His grandparents taught him to paint using traditional methods and materials. Distinctive features of his earlier paintings include the use of garliwan (bloodwood gum), spinifex sap and kangaroo blood as binders for ochre. Britten depicted his Dreamings with a lateral landscape perspective and gentle clusters of dome-shaped ranges representing Purnululu. He was known for his exploration of the landscape with rough textures and bold designs. The distinctive dotting, which outlines and is embodied in the landscape forms, describes the country and evokes the presence of ancestors and ceremonies.