Freddie Timms

Freddie Timms

Artist Freddie Timms
Years 1944 -
language Gidja
locality Kimberley WA

Freddie Timms began painting in 1986, inspired by the elder artists already painting at Frog Hollow, a small outstation attached to the community at Warmun, Turkey Creek. He was by then, forty-two years old and had lived an eventful life as a young stockman on stations throughout the East Kimberley region. Freddy was born at Police Hole in 1946 and followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming a stockman at Lissadell Station. At the age of twenty, he set out to explore and work on other stations. It was during this time that he met and worked alongside Rover Thomas who was to have a lasting influence on him. In 1985, he left Lissadell, to which he had returned after the physically demanding stockman’s life, to settle at the new community established at Warmun where he worked as a gardener at the Argyle Mine. He eventually moved out to Frog Hollow with his wife Berylene Mung and their four children and took a job as an environmental health worker, assuming responsibility for the general maintenance of the small community. While in the company of elder artists such as Rover Thomas and Hector Jandanay, who were already painting and achieving notoriety at this time, Timms requested art materials from Joel Smoker, the first art coordinator at Waringarri Arts in Kununurra. Smoker visited the community on a regular basis and recognized Freddy’s potential in his first distinctive canvasses and confident grasp of the medium.

Social Affiliation: Janama subsection Medium: Painting, ochres on canvas, ochres and gum resin fixative on canvas. Subjects: Minimalist ‘aerial’ / map view, large rounded blocks of colour. Lake Argyle/Ord river area stories, Argyle Diamond Mine country, Bulunyin country, Barungi country. Turkey Creek School.

Bibliography: Ryan, J., 1993, Images of Power, Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley, exhib, cat., National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. 1993, Aratjara, Art of the First Australians: Traditional and Contemporary Works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Artists, exhib. cat. (conceived and designed by Bernard Luthi in collaboration with Gary Lee), Dumont, Buchverlag, Koln. (C) Georgeff, Simon, “Drawing the line”. The Sunday Age, 23 August 1998, Agenda p 16 McDonald, John, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July 1998.