‘I was born in Ngarangarri country that is now part of Beverley Springs Station (central Kimberley). Ngarangarri is the honey dream: ngara minbinya, honey is good tucker.’ - Lucy Ward

Lucy Ward was born around 1920 in Ngarangarri country in what is now known as Beverley Springs Station in the central Kimberley. After the death of her mother while still an infant, she was brought up in the bush with her father and grandfather. As a small child she footwalked throughout the Ngarangarri and Winyiduwa clan estates, learning the traditional ways of her people. These included learning the stories of the Wandjina as she watched her father and grandfather paint them on the cave walls of the Kimberley. With the arrival of Europeans, Lucy worked on the burgeoning cattle stations of the region, mustering and tailing bullocks. Lucy began painting in 2003, and has quickly established a reputation as one of the Kimberley’s most exciting emerging talents.

With a provocative and daring mix of earthy and bright synthetic colours, Lucy’s paintings of sugarbag, Wandjina and her traditional country at Beverley Springs in the northwest Kimberley balance a strong formal sense with a playfully idiosyncratic vision. In 2006, she was awarded the City of Stirling Art Award, with the judges acclaiming her winning work as ‘vibrant, happy and lively as well as optically challenging and full of movement’. Aged in her late eighties, Lucy Ward’s unmistakable style of painting mixes bold and playful compositions with a sense of sacred gravity. Her paintings of sugarbags and Wandjina present a forthrightness that at times verges on a pop sensibility, with sprays of bright colour leaping from the canvas in vivaciously punchy constellations. Lucy has continuously incorporated new ideas into her works with a sharp-eyed enthusiasm that is matched by her extroverted character.

As well as winning the City of Stirling Art Award, Lucy has also been selected as a finalist in some of Australia’s most prestigious art prizes, including the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Wynne Prize, Arthur Guy Memorial Painting Prize, Redland Art Awards, Fleurieu Biennale, Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, Alice Prize, Hazelhurst Art Award, Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Banyule Work on Paper Prize, Joondalup Invitation Art Award and Canberra Art Prize. Her works are held in numerous public collections around Australia, and she has exhibited to acclaim across Australia and internationally. Lucy will be exhibiting at Art Sydney as part of the Renault New Generation Art exhibition.

Indigenart, The Mossenson Galleries are extremely pleased to be exhibiting new works from Lucy Ward as part of the Renault New Generation Art Exhibition at Art Sydney. Art Sydney will be held at the Royal Hall of Industries, Sydney NSW from 26-28 October 2007. For more information, please contact Naomi Mossenson on 0413803998 or art@mossensongalleries.com.au