Koodjal Chirrigers

“This painting represents my family’s Animal Totem the Splendid Blue Fairy Wren – or ‘Chirriger’ in my language (Noongar), and is of myself and my son Peter Farmer Jnr.. It records the transfer of traditional Noongar stories and knowledge passed down from my father and now to my son.”

Farmer’s works have a sublime, emotional presence, rendered through his evocative, dramatic and singular use of blues. He includes the green/blue tones of cyan blue, derived from the Ancient Greek term ‘kyanos’, meaning dark blue enamel, or lapis lazuli, which reflects and refracts light, as well as echoing the deep blues in the extraordinary works of Yves Klein and Anish Kapoor.

Farmer gently layers his various blues, creating an almost impossible sense of depth, as he paints the endless open skies that are an integral part of Noongar Country, and provide the foundation for his Splendid Blue Fairy Wrens.

Farmer’s deceptively simple paintings present a truly contemporary experience of his traditional culture.

Peter Farmer
Whadjuk, Minang, Wilman and Wardandi Noongar Peoples
Born Gnowangerup, Western Australia
Lives and works Boorloo | Perth

Peter Farmer is one of Western Australia’s most renowned contemporary Aboriginal artists and is represented in significant public collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Bernadt Museum, University of Western Australia, Perth, The British Museum, London together with numerous local and international galleries. He has been honoured also with representative artworks in Perth’s sister City of Kagoshima.

Awarded a Contemporary Aboriginal Arts Degree, he then completed his Bachelor of Visual/Fine Arts in 2001. Since graduating he has regularly participated in group exhibitions, including Encounters Exhibition at The British Museum, Portraits of Diversity with Nomad Two Worlds with photographer Russell James and the celebrated actor Hugh Jackman, as part of the 2011 Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting hosted in Perth.

As a well-known creative artist, he has been invited to capture the spirit of Aboriginal culture through new applications, reaching a new and very wide audience. He was selected to create the inaugural West Coast Eagles Football Club’s Indigenous Guernsey, the West Coast Fever’s first Indigenous players uniform, and the Western Force’s first Indigenous Jersey. He was also invited by the renowned shoe designer, Jimmy Choo to develop a couture shoe and dress, now a part of the Western Australian Museum’s ‘Cultural Collections’ and is part of largest indoor sculptural installation in the southern hemisphere at ‘Melbourne Central Tower’s’ – ‘Tower Lobby Project’ which opened in 2020.