Two Laws: One Big Spirit
PAULNACHE is proud to present
Two Laws: One Big Spirit
By Rusty Peters and Peter Adsett
The aptly named Two Laws: One Big Spirit is a series of fourteen canvases by two painters of very different cultural backgrounds. Few imagined that the severe abstracts of Peter Adsett, a pakeha painter, born in Aotearoa and living near Melbourne, would sit companionably beside the traditional, curvilinear Gija paintings of Rusty Peters, from the eastern Kimberley. And yet they do! Painted in the year 2000, Two Laws: One Big Spirit travelled throughout Australia and the north island of New Zealand, before disappearing from sight for twenty years. Now they are on prominent display at their new home, the Art Gallery of South Australia. Occupying the entire balcony area surrounding the central stairwell, Two Laws: One Big Spirit introduces the visitor to one of Australia’s greatest collections of Indigenous art. And it does so by offering a unique example of ‘two-way:’ cooperation and mutual respect, between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The compatibility of the paintings was the natural outcome of Rusty’s and Peter’s daily routine. They worked in tandem, leaving time to study and discuss each painting as it was drying. As the series progressed, the pair became increasingly sensitive to the givens: red, black and white contrasts, shape of support (horizontal rectangles, or squares), and, ultimately, the spaces of wall that would separate them. If Rusty was to announce the name of the series, early on, and quite definitively, Peter responded by saying this was not just a collaboration, but a “dialogue in paint.”
– Text by Mary-Alice Lee, Art Historian
Two Laws: One Big Spirit opened in February 2025 at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The paintings are on display in gallery 7.
Art Gallery of South Australia
Tura yarnkawardli
Kaurna Country
North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000
Australia
T +61 8 7085 1667
agsa.sa.gov.au
TALKS
Listen to Peter Adsett talk with Nici Cumpston, Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art on the 25th February 2025, 12:30pm, free public admission.
AGSA MAGAZINE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Exhibition: Two Laws: One Big Spirit
Artists: Rusty Peters and Peter Adsett
Location: Art Gallery of South Australia
Exhibition dates: Now open to the public until May 2025
Admission: Free, public entry
Artist Talk: Scheduled for 25th February 2025, 12:30pm at AGSA
Curated by: Nici Cumpston, Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
Article: images © the artists, courtesy of AGSA
Writing: Mary-Alice Lee, art historian; “The aptly named Two Laws …”
Represented by: PAULNACHE, Gisborne, NZ, since 2009
Photography: Felix Adsett (installation)
Artlink Review
Two Painters, Two Laws and One Big Spirit
April 2025 marks twenty-five years since Rusty Peters (Dirrji) and Peter Adsett painted Two Laws One Big Spirit at Humpty Doo near Darwin. The fourteen canvases—seven pairs, in formal association with each other—are now permanently housed in the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), gifted by GRANTPIRRIE.
A quarter of a century is a long time in the politics of reconciliation, the framework within which the series has mostly been discussed. ‘A dialogue in paint’ as Adsett refers to the career-defining project, the works are evidence of a correspondence between unlikely painting peers, born of acutely different world views and visual vocabularies.