'Fire & Lightning' | 280x160x50cm

FirsCode: DDO-SK-21020

Artist: Sarrita King

Area: Katherine NT

Community: Gurindji & Wanyi

Title: Fire & Lightning

Medium: Sculpture, Metal, Rust, Stone Base

Size: 280x160x50cm

Year: 2020

With this sculpture Sarrita wanted to translate her "Fire" & "Lightning" stories into a 3D object. The choice to use metal is a reflection on the strength and longevity of the Australian Indigenous culture and the stories passed down over the centuries. The rust is a reflection of the age of the markings and long history of these stories.

Sarrita King | Lightning

Sarrita’s Lightning paintings are a painted memory of the electrical storms in the tropical climate of Darwin where Sarrita spent her youth. The lightning would crack across the entire sky, creating lines not dissimilar to cracked earth. And with the lightning came the winds that in their fury whipped up all the dust, rain, heat and magnetic energy into a maelstrom in the air. Sarrita would discover new patterns and colours every time she witnessed these natural light shows.

Sarrita paints the lightning series in two main ways: she either encapsulates the intensity of the storm and the driving rain to the point where it is seemingly audible or contrarily, she points out the subtle beauty within the storm and the way in which the elements gracefully twist and turn between the dramatic lightning strikes.

Sarrita King | Fire

Sarrita’s father told her of the connection of all things in life and explained that her ancestors would experience the same connection to the land as her when feeling the warmth of the fire and looking into its deep colours. Fire was also used in the important act of ‘back burning’, utilised by the Aboriginal people to stimulate the rejuvenation of plant growth and therefore food sources. Sarrita acknowledges all of this in her Fire paintings.

Injecting paint onto the canvas surface, Sarrita recreates the sharp licks of flames in glowing oranges and reds stretching up the length canvas. The contrast of the bright colours on a jet black background creates an immense visual heat and also a cutting contemporary aesthetic.