The One Before Me

‘Bright Sun Over Campsite’

Malcolm Ellis was a Noongar artist who painted in the tradition of the children artists who created paintings and drawings at the Carrolup Native Settlement (often known as 'Marribank’) near Katanning, Western Australia, in the 1940s and 1950s.

In the ' Aboriginal artists of the south-west: past and present’ exhibition catalogue, Stanton and Hill write that Ellis’ paintings “remain a testimony to his acute powers of observation, and his delight at the coming of each new day. His works often resemble images of some sort of 'Garden of Eden’, resplendent in energetic colours of sunrises and sunsets. These are celebrations of the memory of his own country, the south-west.”

‘Landscape in Green and Yellow’

‘Landscape in Pink and Orange’

‘Landscape With Blue Hills’

‘Southwest Landscape with Kangaroos’

Sources: https://www.artrecord.com/index.cfm/artist/8019-ellis-malcolm/medium/2-works-on-paper/

Passage by Herman Hesse from ‘Wandering: Notes and Sketches’ (1920).

Force CH’IEN