“Between language and country II” by Robert Andrew
Title:
- Between language and country II
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Artist Statement:
Yawuru descendent, Robert Andrew’s work combines programmable machinery with earth pigments, ochres, rocks, and soil to mine historical and cultural events buried by the dominant paradigms of western culture. ‘between language and country II’ (2024) is constantly developing and translating—enunciating the complex connections between language and Country in physical materials that persistently build and evaporate. The land both informs and records lived experiences. Water pools, evaporates, and streams over land—its gradual lapping and flow captured in the white mineral lines at its shifting boundaries. ‘between language and country II’ invites you to stop, listen, and watch, as saltwater slowly drips from above—building and dismantling a written word in Yawuru Ngang-na, the artist’s ancestral tongue.
‘Buru—everything around you that you can see from the earth to the sky and also time’
Yawuru language is an oral and conceptual language that requires expansive discourse and emphasis on experiences, philosophies, ideas, abstractions, and connections. To truly understand a conceptual language is to know the land and experience its evolving form—to speak it brings Country into the vocal cords and into the bodies of the people—its resonance is held within the land it’s born from.
