Artetyerre Etching by Billy Benn Perrurle BB-2

My country is Artetyerre, Harts Range, south and east Arrernte. My country painting. My country is Dreaming Antenhe (possum). My Dreaming corroborree. My Dreaming goes to Alcunpa, to another people's country, north-east from Utopia.'
— Billy Benn Perrurle. Source: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

This etching is a depiction of Harts Range by renowned painter Billy Benn titled "Artetyerre". His images are found from memory and feeling and by painting his land Billy brings the country into himself. He plans to paint every hill from his country and then he will stop, then he will return home.

Billy paints primarily his father's country and paintings cover a wide scope of style, born of his own lack of preciousness, his vivid imagination and colour, texture and material experimentation strategies – rather than the study of other painterly influences. One sees hints of Turner, Cezanne, Van Gogh and the Orientalists within his work, yet these were images never seen by Billy. We are reminded of these other great painters in the variations of light that he captures, rolling ranges painted in deep reds, reminding viewers of the raging seas Turner exposed. From the Central Australian context, they remind one of the great inland sea which once existed here. Yet Billy remarks only on Albert Namatjira being a great painter.

Limited Edition: 20, Medium: Etching with Chine Collé, Image Size: 24.5 x 19.5 cm, Paper size: 55 x 39 cm