This exhibition marks the final release of works from Paddy Bedford’s Estate. It celebrates the artist’s dynamic and lyrical works on paper, and coincides with the 20th anniversary of his major solo presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA). While the gallery will continue to represent Paddy’s legacy, Paddy Bedford signals the conclusion of our stewardship of his remaining body of work.
Paddy Bedford stands as one of the most influential figures to emerge from the East Kimberley’s late-20th-century artistic renaissance. A senior Gija cultural leader, Bedford carried deep knowledge of Country shaped by a lifetime spent working cattle across the stations of his homelands and participating in ceremonial life. Though he painted bodies and ceremonial objects throughout his youth, his public career as an artist began unexpectedly late, when modest experiments on found timber revealed a strikingly original visual voice. Joining the newly formed Jirrawun Arts collective in the late 1990s, Bedford rapidly became recognised for his spare, elemental compositions.