Kathleen (Kanta) Donnegan

Overview
Kathleen Kanta Donnegan is an Indigenous Aboriginal Australian artist painter from the desert lands Spinifex region of Australia, currently being exhibited amongst contemporaries at the EXPO Chicago art fair by the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London.

Kanta was born, circa 1944, in the remote southern Spinifex Country of Western Australia, between the Tjuntun and Unpun rock holes. In the late 1950s she moved to Cundeelee Mission, when her ancestral lands became uninhabitable due to nuclear testing in the area. While at Cundeelee she had one son and three daughters with her first husband (now deceased). In 1984 she returned to Spinifex as part of the first wave of re-settlers, and became part of the painting movement there in the 1990s.

 

Her depictions of her ancestral country, and the stories of its creation, are notable for their bold economy of design and evanescent handling of colour. In 1997 Kanta collaborated with other female artists from the community on a celebrated ‘women’s native title painting’, one of the works which helped the Spinifex people gain recognition for their ancestral land rights. She is married to the northern Spinifex artist, Ian Rictor.

 

Kathleen (Kanta) Donnegan’s work has been exhibited extensively in Australia and Europe. It is held in many important public and private collections, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra, Museum of Western Australia, Perth; Prince Stefan Of Liechtenstein.

Works