Thriving in the Desert

Perth International Arts Festival - Ngaanyatjarra Exhibition and Book Launch

2011-12-21T13:03:00.009+09:30

Lawrence Wilson Gallery, University of Western Australia in association with Western Desert Mob, present

PURNU, TJANPI, CANVAS - ART OF THE NGAANYATJARRA LANDS

The Ngaanyatjarra Lands have produced some of the great artists and art works of recent times. From a network of community art centres that support the diversity of Ngaanyatjarra creative practice - Maruku Arts and Crafts, Tjanpi Desert Weavers, Papulankutja Artists, Kayili Artists, Warakurna Artists and Tjarlirli Art - comes a new exhibition of paintings, carvings and sculpture.

Purnu, Tjanpi, Canvas is a journey into one of Australia's most vibrant creative and cultural landscapes, presented in conjunction with the launch of a publication

OPENING THURSDAY 23 FEBRUARY 5.30PM

EXHIBITION RUNS 10 FEBRUARY - 12 MAY 2012

PLEASE RSVP ON Tel: 08 6488 3707 Email: lwag@uwa.edu.au

The University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, Australia 6009
P +61 (0)8 6488 3707 F +61 (0)8 6488 1017
E lwag@uwa.edu.au W http://www.lwgallery.uwa.edu.au/

PUBLIC PROGRAMS: Artists talks and activities on 24th + 25th Feb

BOOK LAUNCH: A session with Hetti Perkins, John Carty and Tim Acker at the Perth Writers Festival on 25 Feb to discuss the new Western Desert Mob publication Ngaanyatjarra - Art from the Lands (details to be confirmed)

Image: Jackie Giles, working on a new painting, 2009.
Photograph Tim Acker © Kayili Artists.

Supported by Visual Arts Program Partner Westfarmers Arts

Warakurna Artists Christmas Special Available Online 1st December 2011

2011-11-29T18:11:00.003+09:30

Beautiful artworks made especially for Christmas available online - 1st December 2011

http://www.warakurnaartists.com.au

Paintings - $85 - $500
Kids paintings $35 - $50

Postage sent via Australia Post. Please note that our mail-plane comes once a week. We recommend you get your orders in early so your presents are delivered in time for Christmas.

CONTACT US
Edwina or Dion
email: art@warakurnaartists.com.au
PMB 29, via Alice Springs NT 0872
PH: 61 + (0)8 8955 8099
FX: 61 + (0)8 8955 8399

Paintings by Carol Maanyatja Golding, Tjunka Lewis and Tommy Mitchell

A Pot of Gold by Dion Teasdale

2011-11-22T17:18:00.004+09:30

It is late November in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands and the weather has gone a little rama-rama (crazy).

Over the past week temperatures have plummeted, violent thunderstorms have brought soaking rains, angry forks of lightening crackle across the night skies and rogue winds rattle tin rooves throughout the district.

On the news last night they said Uluru had its coldest November day on record. Here in Warakurna, nearly 300kms west of Uluru, local creeks are full, roads have turned to mush, are cut off in all directions, and the mail plane can’t land because the airstrip is awash.

In the art centre, the ladies are making jokes about snow. Is Warakurna headed for a white Christmas?

Usually, I’m told, it’s stinking hot out here, at this time of year. I’ve heard stories of thongs melting on people’s feet as they walk the community’s bitumen roads. A woman at the store told me it’s common for temperatures to reach 50 degrees leading in to December.

But not this year. I’m wearing two pairs of socks, eating homemade soup, and most of the town’s dogs are trying to get into the art centre so they can snuggle up next to their artistic owners who are huddled over canvas and paint pots, nursing mugs of hot tea.

Yesterday, to make room for more artists, I had to entice the dogs out of the art centre with a tin of fruit cake. We kept the front door closed, but one of the mutts used his teeth to chew his way back inside. He was prepared to do just about anything to get out of wind and rain.

It all began last Friday.

Early on in the day the sun was out, there was no wind, and the stage was set for a scorcher.

The art centre team took a trip to Wanarn, where Warakurna Artists’ runs a weekly outreach painting project. Less than 100km drive west of Warakurna, Wanarn is home to some of the region’s most senior and celebrated artists, who reside at the community’s aged care facility.

I helped the art centre’s manager, Edwina Circuitt, and artists Eunice Porter, Judith Chambers and Dorcus Bennett load the troupie with boxes of paint, brushes and primed canvas, and after a stop at the Roadhouse to get egg sandwiches and water for the trip, we headed off.

By the time we got to Wanarn, around lunchtime, the temperature was well over 30 degrees, the humidity was stifling, and the artists were waiting under shaded verandahs, eager to paint. Ben Holland and Neville McArthur were calling out for canvas and paint before any of us could get out of the troupie. The ladies – among them famous painters such as Carol Golding, Myra Cook and Tjapartji Bates, were excited too.

The afternoon of painting was energetic, the artists focused, the resulting works vibrant, colourful and rich. Ben Holland mapped his mother’s country in primary colours. Tjapartji Bates painted a triptych using pinks, red and a splash of aqua. Neville McArthur’s dog snapped at the heels of one of the nursing staff, trod in a pot of black paint and left paw prints up and down the footpath.

Somewhere between Warakurna (which is on Central Standard Time) and Wanarn, there is a time zone shift – Wanarn is in-synch with Perth, so we go backwards in time an hour and a half. The afternoon was long; the temperature notched up a few more degrees. I wasn’t drinking enough water, ended up with a headache.

Afternoon tea was served (peaches and custard for the artists) and as 4 o’clock rolled around it was time for us to pack up, load the troupie with finished works, and time for the artists to get some rest.

Ron, one of the aged care staff, gave us fresh spinach, beetroot, rocket, kale and parsley from his impressive vegie garden (in which he’s growing boab trees from seeds) and we popped into the new Wanarn store, the newest supermarket in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.

On the drive back to Warakurna, as we time-jumped from 5 o’clock to 6.30pm, one of the tyres on the troupie blew out. It was while we were mounting the vehicle on a pallet jack, getting hot and bothered in the early evening, that we began to notice the barometric changes around us.

The sun had disappeared. Dark, menacing clouds were rolling toward us. There were intense rumblings overhead, a curtain of solid rain moving across the horizon. There was the buzz of electricity in the air.

Back on the road, we see Warakurna in the distance, the Rawlinson Ranges lit up in a shaft of dramatic late afternoon sunshine. And then bolts of lightning crack like whips across the sky, from left to right, and up and down.

In the troupie we all screamed and squealed, in part delighted - like children watching fireworks, and in part we were terrified.

And then all of a sudden a rainbow, in thick bands of brilliant colours like the brush strokes on the paintings in the back of the troupie, appeared in an arch, reaching high into the heavens.

‘Warnampi’, Mrs Porter said, seeing the rainbow as a mythical water snake stretching across the Lands.

We rolled into Warakurna to find the end of the rainbow touching down just metres from the art centre. I remember thinking, ‘Yep, this place is a pot of gold’.

To read more of Dion's stories go to ABC Open - http://open.abc.net.au/posts/tags/Dion%20Teasdale

The Wanarn Travellers of Space and Time

2011-11-22T12:46:00.004+09:30

The Hubble telescope peers into the furthest reaches of the galaxy to photograph the far edges of space. The scientists who run it are looking for the secrets that animate the universe. They want to know its age, speed and direction. They also want to know what it is made of. The Hubble images have become famous not because they contain these secrets, but because they are beautiful, striking some deep chord within the human soul. It is as if we have seen these spiral galaxies, gas clouds and galactic arms before, as if there is something in the galaxy's reaches that we recognise.

It may be too simple to say that the painters of Wanarn produce the same effect, that their images also resonate with some pattern of life buried just beneath the surface of the universe. The irony here is that the Hubble required decades of technological effort, to make the most expensive and laborious pictures in the history of humanity. The Wanarn paintings are by comparison accomplished with ease, painted over tea or television, on the veranda or in bed. Yet these paintings also build a bridge from the depths within to the universe beyond. They are magical paintings, as with dazzling tricks of the brush they create puzzles that seduce the eye with their simplicity and mystery.

As the Hubble mirrors were being conceived, and first contact was taking place in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, the French philosopher Roger Caillois proposed there was only a finite number of images in the world. This is why the shape of an eagle lies in a turtle's shell, or a map in the lines of a hand. The Wanarn paintings and the Hubble photographs lie on the same continuum, speaking through the strata of the cosmos with patterns that are of the universe. Their lines are the lines that can only recombine in a limited number of ways, and that bind the freedom of the universe to their fluid movement between stars.

While the Hubble scientists peer into their screens and devices, the Wanarn painters travel these lines, these patterns, without leaving their place in the deep desert of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. From here they can see everything. They can look back upon the country and up into the depths of the sky. Theirs is the joy of a universe that is held by the touch of a paintbrush, opening up wormholes into the night. They are the metaphysicians of the early twenty-first century, tracing lines that have no beginning or end, showing us keys to doors of which we can only have the most faint conception. The great mystery of these paintings is that we recognise them, that their patterns echo with a significance we cannot name. For truth is never a part of something else but can only be itself, lain before and beyond everything that we know.

Darren Jorgensen
University of Western Australia

An exhibition of works by Wanarn artists opens this weekend at Aboriginal and Pacific Art.

DETAILS
Paintings from Warakurna and Wanarn

Exhibition dates: 22nd November - 10th December 2011

Opening: Saturday 26th November 3-6pm

Address:
2 Danks St
Waterloo/Sydney

Tel: 02 9699 2211
Email: info@aboriginalpacificart.com.au

Painting:

Mirlirrtjarra 2011 by Ben Holland. 762mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas

Warakurna Artists Online Christmas Special 2011

2011-11-22T11:43:00.011+09:30

It's that time of year again!

Beautiful artworks made especially for Christmas available online - 1st December 2011

http://www.warakurnaartists.com.au

Paintings - $85 - $500
Kids paintings $35 - $50

Postage sent via Australia Post. Please note that our mail-plane comes once a week. We recommend you get your orders in early so your presents are delivered in time for Christmas.

CONTACT US
Edwina or Dion
email: art@warakurnaartists.com.au
PMB 29, via Alice Springs NT 0872
PH: 61 + (0)8 8955 8099
FX: 61 + (0)8 8955 8399

Desert Wonders by Darren Jorgensen

2011-11-19T08:54:00.009+09:30

By Darren Jorgensen, The West Australian October 28, 2011, 12:5

If you happen to be driving from Kalgoorlie to Alice Springs along the Great Central Road, look out for the new Yurliya Gallery at the Warakurna Community Roadhouse on this side of the WA border. You'll probably have to stop there anyway, as it's the only fuel stop between Warburton and Docker River.

Yurliya is the Ngaanyatjarra name for the Rawlinson Ranges that rise from the desert plains behind the gallery, and Ngaanyatjarra is the language that people speak here. It's a welcome relief from the dust outside to stand in the clean, still air of this place, filled with some of the most dazzling paintings to come out of this remote region.

Yurliya is the public face of Warakurna Artists, which has hosted much of the region's art boom over the past 10 years. The gallery offers works for sale by the stars of the Ngaanyatjarra art movement but its highlight is a drawing in desert sand by three of its older women that shows how designs have moved from the ground to the canvas.

The gallery mixes designs in the sand with designs on paintings, and also exhibits woven baskets and purnu, the desert name for wooden carvings. It also boasts a massively scaled-up image of one of Carol Maanyatja Golding's colourful paintings, each dot as big as a hand.

The fun of the gallery lies in being able to browse through racks of paintings by old and young artists. It's a good time to visit, as the quality of the new generation's work is now beginning to catch up to the grandeur of the old masters such as Golding.

The young Ken Shepherd's paintings of Walpirnta, his country, have all the vibrancy that first caught the eye of collectors and curators from east coast galleries looking at the work of Warakurna's elders. Shepherd is not shy of using brash colours or mixing up different desert designs.

Yurliya Gallery is the perfect place to see this kind of work after brushing off the dust of a deep desert drive. One's eyes have become adjusted to seeing long distances.

This country is the subject of the work on show, this great expanse of spinifex and red sand in the Gibson Desert.

To put a gallery where this art movement has arisen makes perfect sense, just as the Louvre is in Paris, or the Museum of Modern Art is in New York.

Aboriginal art may be Australia's greatest contribution to world culture, with much of the work coming from the most remote and sparsely populated areas of the country.
This is something that Yurliya celebrates, as it hosts visitors as well as the wider Ngaanyatjarra community. There are videos on display that were made by the artists, teaching outsiders and the local children about the meaning of what is on show.

Importantly, Yurliya makes the continuity of Ngaanyatjarra culture visible to everyone. The gallery is a good lesson in how art can function very differently for people and communities.

Ken Shepherd's paintings will be on show at the Revealed 2011 exhibition of WA Aboriginal art at Gallery Central, Central Institute of Technology, and at the Art Marketplace in the Perth Cultural Centre. This will be a good chance to catch up with the latest works of 50 emerging artists from communities around the State as they are shown to an international audience during CHOGM.

The Revealed 2011 is at Gallery Central, Yurliya Gallery, Warakurna, is open daily. Aberdeen Street, Northbridge, until November 12. The Art Marketplace is in the Perth Cultural Centre today and tomorrow from noon-4pm.

Images:
Eleanor and Milton in the Yurliya Gallery, Warakurna Roadhouse.
&
Warakurna Artist's Troopie with the Rawlinson Ranges in the distance.

Photos Edwina Circuitt / Warakurna Artists

Painting
Walpirnta 2011 by Ken Shepherd. 1524mm x 2134mm: acrylic on canvas

Ngaanyatjarra Art Centre - Christmas Art Market

2011-11-11T18:01:00.006+09:30

The Ngaanyatjarra Art Centres are inviting you to a fantastic Christmas Market

Paintings, T-Shirts, Bush Medicine, Bush Soap and more!

Nothing over $300.00

Details
Sunday 4th December
10.30am – 3pm
Warakurna Artists Studio Shed, Warakurna Community

Please join us for a fun day

Art Centres involved....
* Warakurna Artists
* Papulankutja Artists
* Kayili Artists
* Tjarlirli Art

FOR NON-STAFF PERMITS ARE REQUIRED
2 permits are required (cross-boarders)
Western Australia - Contact Teresa at Ngaanyatjarra Council -PH 08 8950 1711
Northern Territory - Central Lands Council PH (08) 8951 6320
4WD conditions only. Check for road closures if there have been heavy rains

ACCOMODATION
Contact Warakurna Roadhouse - 08 8956 7344
Fuel and food available at Roadhouse.
Opening hours Sat and Sun: 9am - 3pm

Warakurna & Wanarn Group Exhibition, Sydney

2011-10-12T08:49:00.008+09:30

Aboriginal & Pacific Art, in association with Warakurna Artists, WA, present

Paintings from Warakurna and Wanarn

Exhibition dates: 22nd November - 10th December 2011

Opening: Saturday 26th November 3-6pm

Address
2 Danks St
Waterloo, NSW 2017
tel: 61+(0)2 9699 2211
email: info@aboriginalpacificart.com.au

Hours: 11.00 -5.00 Tuesday - Saturday

Images:
Patjarrtja 2011 by Tjunka Lewis. 508mm x 1016mm: acrylic on canvas

Ngirntaka Purlkanya 2011 by Ben Holland. 762mm x 762mm: acrylic on canvas

Walu 2011 by Carol Maanyatja Golding. 1016mm x 1219mm: acrylic on canvas

Warakurna Artists Desert Mob 2011 Exhibition Photos

2011-09-15T16:58:00.004+09:30

Some photos of Warakurna Artists display in this year's Desert Mob at Araluen in Alice Springs.

Photos courtesy Araluen

Visions of a changing topography

2011-09-14T21:32:00.004+09:30

By Nicolas Rothwell
The Australian
13 August 2011

CAN a single exhibition restore confidence to a flagging art market, and a wall full of bright canvases embody an entire culture?

The 300-odd works on view at this year's Desert Mob show, held in Alice Springs at the close of a trying season for the Aboriginal art movement, serve as a tonic and leave little room for anxiety or scepticism.

It's not so much that this 21st annual survey of paintings and sculptures from Central Australian art centres is, as always, strong, but that it is strong in unexpected ways. Its stand-outs are surprises: the order and rhythm of the exhibition emerges from within the pieces hanging in the galleries of the Araluen Centre rather than from some grand, imposed design. Even in this era of intense promotion of Aboriginal art projects in remote areas, Desert Mob retains its unvarnished charm.

The participating art centres themselves a mixed bunch ranging from long-established studios to struggling outposts send in a selection of their works, up to a total of 10. Everything submitted is shown, in a tight display: the similarities between the artists from each community stand out, as do regional stylistic currents and variations.

The art is here on its own terms. Araluen's subtle exhibition curator Stephen Williamson, a former co-ordinator from Warlayirti at Balgo Hills, is in his element, quietly balancing a riot of primal colours. "How alive this movement is," he mused in his low voice at the opening on Friday. "Constantly changing, developing in a new direction, different artists standing out in different years."

The pattern of recent Desert Mob shows has been consistent. A new star art centre emerges and its works are admired and collected. They soon receive blue-chip commercial gallery showings and state institutions now slaves to fashion rush to buy up their stocks: one year the remote Gibson Desert art centre of Kayili, next Tjungu Palya from Nyapari in the Mann Range, the next Mimili Maku from the heart of the Pitjantjatjara lands. This year the pattern repeats with Iwantja Arts, the art centre at Indulkana community, close by the Stuart Highway, on the desert's eastern fringe.

Dallas Gold's Raft Artspace held a spectacular exhibition of work by one of Iwantja's most senior men, Whiskey Tjukangku, earlier this year, and a pair of intriguing, icon-rich canvases by the same artist hangs at Desert Mob, together with a collective men's work in which Tjukangku also had a hand. Ngura, it is titled "home" or "camp" as are so many paintings in this exhibition and it captures a striking vision of the country, red and deep ochre, surmounted by black circlets and barbed, spear-like forms. Such imagery can be found in weathered engravings on outcrops in the southern desert country: it is the mark of an old tradition, a way of seeing the world, now enlivened in acrylic colour on linen canvas for new eyes.

With so great a wealth of paintings and sculptural pieces on view, the spectator rushes to compare and judge. But the sheer profusion of the works, the totality of the exhibition, is its core message. The desert art centres are a managed, artificial archipelago, but the rich variation in the tapestry of the artworks they harvest makes a simple point. All through the desert inland, the show seems to murmur, this is going on. These multiple ways of conceiving and picturing the country still thrive. Along with the income management, poverty and abjection, this is also present. Make of it what you will. The remote communities are not just zones of crisis, then; they are also home to a strange, persisting renaissance. Consider Amata, a small collection of houses in the heart of desert range country and in years gone past a byword for petrol-sniffing chaos. It is now the home of Tjala, one of the region's most successful art centres. Large works by its painters dominate the main gallery of Araluen, and the key canvas is an elusive, hieroglyph-like emblem in reds, blues and deep orange and yellow colours by Wawiriya Burton, an old woman born in the bush and steeped in her traditions. She says next to nothing about the core subject matter of her work; there it hangs like a veil of beauty, something to be astonished by as much as something to gather up and own. It is striking how many of the most potent paintings in the exhibition are by men and women of senior standing in their ceremonial religious realms; how many, too, are by prominent healers. The most lyrical canvas in the show, Wati Ngintaka Tjukurpa (lizard man dreaming), by Harry Tjutjuna from Ninuku Arts is one example: a wash of loosely intermeshing colours reds, pale shades of ochre, pinks, purples and deep night-sky blues, in the midst of which the lizard figure, half-hidden, can be made out.
Here is both the wonder and challenge of the desert art-making tradition, caught by this show in its evolving flight. It embodies a distinct way of apprehending the landscape and this difference, which lends it consummate value for outside eyes, is what makes it almost impossible to decode and grasp. It is a tradition under dreadful threat: even the fact that it needs to be husbanded and preserved speaks of its weakness.

Can it be prolonged, and renewed? Can the tradition be passed on to younger artists, through instruction, workshops and all the other courses outsiders love to provide? Should it be? The masterworks with immediate appeal in Desert Mob 2011 are almost all by elderly artists figures such as Lily Hargraves from Lajamanu in the Tanami Desert, or Tommy Mitchell and Carol Golding from Warakurna Arts in Western Australia and this association of artistry with age is natural.

Painting, in Aboriginal communities with surviving deep culture and language, is linked with ceremonial knowledge systems that are passed on slowly through decades of instruction. Much of the work of cultural transmission goes on far beyond the realm of art centres and publicly funded schemes. Yet the art centre movement is widening its bid to preserve desert life-ways and a symposium held in concert with the opening of the exhibition reviewed the range of programs that have sprung up as part of this campaign.

One of the more startling stages for cultural revival projects is the Alice Springs town camp art centre network, a set of studios where bright-painted landscapes, felt figurines and sculptures constructed from found objects have been produced for several years. A team of dedicated co-ordinators stands behind this school, which increasingly generates works of substance as well as charm.

Perhaps the most compelling pieces in the idiom are being made at the Yarrenyty Arltere art centre associated with Larapinta Valley town camp. Rhonda Sharpe's bird figures stitched together from recycled, stuffed woollen blanket material draw the eye, as does the "bird of colour" by the leading exponent of soft-form sculpture, Constance Robinja.

At nearby Tangentyere Artists, a handful of painters for several years has produced picturesque scenes and topographies of the deserts surrounding Alice Springs. One of them is Jane Young, whose pieces often depict rockscapes from the Simpson. For this exhibition she has recorded a version of her country in reddish paint on a thin cylinder of metal pipe. It is a strangely poignant, suggestive work.

The various camp art centres may not be as easy to brand or market as the far-flung culture outposts of the sand-ridge western desert, but they have their part in the overall movement, for Alice Springs plays host to bush painters marooned by ill-health or family difficulties in town.

Other painters and sculptors are based perforce in the vicinity. Outside town, within the confines of the correctional centre, the little-known Greenbush Art Group can be found. Its floating membership often includes well-connected painters marking time. One of the most impressive of the sculptural ensembles at this year's Desert Mob is from the hand of a Greenbush man Kevin Dixon, whose "found object" animals have a sharp, life-like quirkiness. His bush pig with its upturned snout and his grazing camel, wavering on its pipe-legs, serve to expand the accepted categories for desert art-making once again.

It can happen in strange places, with unexpected materials. The fire catches where you least anticipate it and it burns in unpredictable ways.

Desert Mob 2011 Website Goes Live

2011-09-14T10:18:00.005+09:30

Desert Mob 2011 comprises of more than 300 recent artworks from 33 art centres in Central Australia. The exhibition is a unique opportunity to view and purchase artworks by both established and emerging artists from Desart member art centres in the one venue.

It is also a unique opportunity to witness an overview of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement across much of Central Australia, which covers a land base of around a million square kilometres. The artists featured are living and working in some of the remotest areas of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

Exhibition Dates
Friday 9 September - Closes Sunday 23 October 2011

Location
Araluen Arts Centre
61 Larapinta Drive
Alice Springs NT 0871
T +61 (08) 8951 1122
W www.araluenartscentre.nt.gov.au

The Desert Mob Exhibition 2011 website is now live. The website includes an online gallery of all the artworks in the exhibition and will help facilitate additional sales throughout the exhibition.

Please click on link - http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/arts/ascp/desertmob_exhibition/artcentres.html

IMAGE
Walu 2011 by Carol Maanyatja Golding. 762mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas
Acquired by Araluen Arts Centre Collection

Ernest Bennett's Bronze Miru

2011-08-31T13:49:00.006+09:30

Ernest Bennett was born near Warbuton and now lives in Warakurna with his family. His country is Karrku not far from Warakurna.

A miru is extracted with economy as a vertical segment from a living mulga tree, its craftsman then working with the grain to reduce the portion to the thin even leaf, its minimal form following the demands each of its multiple functions.

The Miru is the essence of western desert minimalism. As the extension of a man's arm it will amplify the power and distance that a spear can be hurled. Its leaf-shaped-core doubles as a container for mixing pituri and can carry ochre. Its burnished edge, when rubbed on a softer wood makes fire. Tipped with a freshly napped blade, the same implement is used as a perfectly balanced adze to butcher fresh-cooked kangaroo or to hone an identical weapon, created on its own perfect template.

Ernest Bennett's Miru has been cast and is poised, as if on the suspension of a rolled-over-motorcar, a vehicles leaf-spring-suspension adapted for a new use. All is kinetic energy - waiting for the target to come within the range of this lethal propellant.

Text courtesy of John Kean, Museum Victoria 2008

The Bronze Miru (limited edition of six) is available, please contact Warakurna Artists art@warakurnaartists.com.au or 08 8955 8099 to place an order.

Photos Edwina Circuitt

Warakurna Artist's 28th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award Entries

2011-08-20T15:45:00.000+09:30

Congratulations to Carol Maanyatja Golding and Tjapartji Bates for being selected in this year's 28th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA).

All 61 pre-selected art works featured in this year's Telstra Art Award can be viewed through the online gallery. View the art works in detail and listen to artists' statements about their artwork.

Vote for who you think should be the People's Choice Winner - you can submit your vote via the online gallery or alternatively in the exhibition at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin. You may only vote once in the People’s Choice Award.

View the 28th Telstra NATSIAA Online Gallery -
http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/museums/exhibitions/natsiaa/

Carol Maanyatja Golding
Walu
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
153 x 76 cm

There were two men and one little boy camping at the Walu rockhole. The men went hunting and left the little boy behind. The men returned with an emu and pulled out its heart. The boy was holding the heart and blood spilt on the rocks. He ran away with the heart and turned into wind

Tjapartji Bates
Kungkarangkalpa
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
152 x 76 cm

This painting is about the Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters). They travelled through tali (sandhills) country, camping at rockholes and hunting for kuka (meat). They killed a Tiwil. They then went to Kalalu and went crawling along the creek, ending up in Wanarn.

INDIGITube - Warakurna Artists Short Film

2011-08-20T09:13:00.009+09:30

Warakurna kids performing inma for the film
Anna Cadden and Cynthia Burke
Cynthia Burke and Mantuwa

Anna and Eunice Porter

Warakurna Artists and Ngaanyatjarra Media worked together to produce an interpretive short film for the Yurlyia Gallery located at the Warakurna Roadhouse.

Ngaanyatjarra Media staff member Anna Cadden worked closely with budding local film maker Cynthia Burke.

A segment of the short film has been uploaded to IndigiTUBE. The women artists of Warakurna tell the story of the Blue Tongue Lizard Dreaming and the kids listen, and respect the country's story, and dance at the end.

The music played during the piece is by the Warakurna Band and sung by Mark Golding.

Click here to see the film - http://www.indigitube.com.au/index.php?option=com_ictv&task=view&ictvId=350

Aboriginal Art Goes Digital In Darwin

2011-08-07T09:18:00.004+09:30

What happens when you combine the artwork of the world’s oldest culture with the
latest web broadcasting technology available?

Check out the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair - online, on Facebook, on Twitter or on your mobile and find out.

As hundreds of arts dealers, collectors, curators and critics from around Australia converge on the Top End for the Darwin Festival’s packed visual arts program, a conversation is starting up using social media to connect people with diverse interests who are in Darwin for the same events.

“With so much on in galleries all over town you just don’t know what to see first or what you might have missed,” says Cathy Cummins, chair of the Art Fair. “We wanted to provide a place where people could connect and discuss ideas about art and talk about new directions but it’s often hard to get all these people in the same room so we’ve set up some spaces online where people can communicate with each other while the Aboriginal Arts Industry festival excitement is taking place,” she said.

Now in its fifth year, Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair will feature new work from over 40 Aboriginal owned community art centres from the Western Desert, the Kimberley, Arnhem Land, the Tiwi Islands and the APY Lands. “These art centres are a well spring of creativity and innovation,” says Cummins who also runs the Warringari Art Gallery in Kununurra. “The opportunity to see so many new works, particularly from emerging artists working in some of the most remote places in Australia, is a truly rare opportunity,” she said.

The Fair will be opened this year by Franchesa Cubillo, Senior Curator of Aboriginal Art at the National Gallery of Australia. But if you can’t make the official opening at midday on Friday you’ll be able to watch the speeches and ceremony live online or download edited highlights later in the day. “We’re reaching out to audiences all over the world with our online coverage,” says DAAF web designer Mikey Leung. “But through our social media presence we want to enhance the experience of the people attending the fair.

“We have so many things happening over the weekend that one person couldn’t possibly get to all of the forums, workshops and guided tours so we thought we’d broaden the audience by posting highlights on facebook and twitter and starting conversations amongst the people who were there and the people who may have missed it,” said Leung.

“It’s a great way to value add to the experience and people who can’t be in Darwin that weekend don’t have to miss out on the important conversations that happen around the Fair and the Telstra Art Award at this time of year,” said Leung. “And they can do it all from their mobile phone,” he said. DAAF will be producing content throughout the weekend specifically aimed at smart phones and iPads. Photos, video, audio streams and text will be updated regularly throughout each day of the fair.

Media Contact: Tony Collins – 0407 729 681

http://www.darwinaboriginalartfair.com.au/
http://www.facebook.com/DarwinAboriginalArtFair
http://twitter.com/#!/darwinartfair
http://daaf.mobi/

Warakurna Artists Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2011

2011-08-05T12:57:00.009+09:30

Warakurna Artists is looking forward to participating in this year's Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair.

We have uploaded some of the paintings to our website to give you a sneak preview - http://www.warakurnaartists.com.au/artworksearch.aspx

Darwin Convention Centre
12-14 August 2011

The Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair provides a unique opportunity to purchase works from over 40 Aboriginal owned community art centres. Experience the rich diversity of these beautiful works from the country’s most remote desert and coastal regions to rural and urban communities.

Painting
Lirrun 2011 by Myra Yurtiwa Cook. 762mm x 1016mm acrylic on canvas

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2011 Media Release

2011-08-05T12:45:00.004+09:30

New artworks from over 40 Aboriginal owned art centres will take centre stage at the Darwin Festival when the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair moves into the Convention Centre from August 12 - 14.

Works from established and emerging artists representing Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley, the Western Desert, the Top End and the Gulf country will be on display under one roof as the Art Fair enters it’s fifth year. This year a record number of stalls have been booked for the Fair, which generated over a million dollars in sales in 2010. About a hundred Aboriginal artists and artsworkers from remote communities are expected to attend the event.

Every August Darwin becomes the centre of the universe for Indigenous art as artists, curators, collectors and critics converge on the Top End for a series of high profile events including Garma Festival, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair and the many exhibitions hosted at galleries all over Darwin.

A series of workshops and public forums will be held during the Fair giving members of the public the chance to meet and interact with artists, as well as art centre staff, curators and art dealers. The program includes demonstrations of pandanus weaving by Arnhem Land weavers famous for their mats and baskets as well as workshops in boab nut carving by artists from the East Kimberley and painting demonstrations by leading artists working in natural ochres.

Interim Chair of the Art Fair, Cathy Cummins, says Darwin is fast becoming Australia’s leading art tourism destination. “This time of year in Darwin is like a festival of Aboriginal art,” she said. “There’s so much going on here, we get visitors from all over the country and around the world,” said Ms Cummins.

The Art Fair, which is restricted to Aboriginal community owned art centres, will also host a public forum each day where controversial issues and new trends in the art world will be the subject of panel discussions. “With so many people here who have an interest in Aboriginal art, it’s the perfect time and place to talk about new directions and future trends in the industry,” Ms Cummins said.

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair aims to provide economic opportunities for community art centres and a unique cultural experience for the people of Darwin and visitors to the Top End. “There’s nowhere else in the world where you can see so much art under one roof that comes from the very heart of Australian culture,” said Ms Cummins.

Media Enquiries: Tony Collins 0407 729 681

Warakurna Artists Collaborative Sets the Pace in the Secondary Market

2011-07-07T18:33:00.004+09:30

Warakurna Artists Collaborative Piece Sets the Pace in the Secondary Market
Bonham's Auction.

Carol Maanyatja Golding (born circa 1930), Pirrmangka Reid Napanangka (born circa 1940), Eunice Yunurupa Porter (born 1948) and Nancy Nyanyarna Jackson (born circa 1954)

Kungkarangkalpa Tjukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming)
bears artists names, year and Warakurna Artists catalogue numbers 587-06.1-4 on the reverse
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
213 x 152cm (83 7/8 x 59 13/16in).

Sold for AU$60,000 inclusive of Buyer's Premium

Footnote:
PROVENANCE:
Painted in 2006
Warakurna Artists, Western Australia
Private collection

EXHIBITED:
The 23rd Telstra National Aborignal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, Northern Territory, 11 August - 22 October 2006
Power and Beauty: Indigenous Art Now, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Victoria, 17 November 2007- 10 March 2008

LITERATURE:
Nicholas Rothwell, 'National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award, Lessons from a Vanishing World', The Australian, 14 August, 2006, p.18.
Judith Ryan, Power and Beauty: Indigenous Art Now, Melbourne: Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2007, pp.46-47, p.47 (illus.).
Heide Calender, November 2007 - February 2008, Melbourne: Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2007 (illus.).
Vogue Living Australia, November/December 2007, p.166 (illus.).
Art Almanac, February 2008, p.58 (illus.).

The Seven Sisters Dreaming is a major women's creation narrative that links a number of desert groups over a vast area of land, from around present day Roebourne on the coast of Western Australia through the lands of the Martu people on the Canning Stock Route, east to central Australia and well beyond. The Dreaming is a universal creation story that manifests itself in several guises from culture to culture and it is known in the Western world as the constellation of Orion and the Pleiades.There are several versions across Aboriginal Australia; among the Anindilyakwa of Groote Eylandt and the Yolngu of northeastern Arnhem Land for example, the narrative tells of a man or a group of men who are variously described as fishermen in their canoes who chase a group of women.

Across the western deserts the setting is land-based rather than aquatic. The core elements of the epic narrative remain constant, however there is considerable variation in detail from group to group. The Ngaanyatjarra people tell of the Kungarangkalpa travelling from Wanarn to Warakurna, and through Munguri near Tjukurla (near Lake Hopkins, heading towards Kintore). Their version of the epic as reflected in the painting and the numerous sites the Sisters visited, tells of a man (Yula) who spied the Seven Sisters while they were digging deep waterholes for drinking water. He wanted to take the younger sister for his wife but the sisters ran away and hid from him. They crossed the country passing through sand hills and dug for water as the creeks were dry. In other versions of the narrative the man transforms himself into a variety of bush food and animals the women cook but cannot eat. To escape his advances, the Sisters transform themselves into the cluster of stars but the man follows them into the heavens and the chase is revealed each night in the constellation of Orion and the Pleiades.

Kungkarangkalpa Tjukurrpa, 2006, displays a number of characteristics common to art making in traditional circumstances, from the mundane to the sacred. The depiction of the various sites visited by the Seven Sisters in their attempts to escape the advances of the old man is suggestive of the sand drawings desert women make as part of story-telling and instruction. In fact the women of Warakurna carry long strands of wire looped at each end with which to draw in the sand; these are called 'story wires.' On the other hand, the collaborative nature of the painting reflects the making of sacred ground paintings in related ceremonies.

For a comparable large scale collaborative painting of the same subject according to the Martu people to the west of Warakurna, see Minyipuru (Seven Sisters), 2007, by Muni Rita Simpson, Rosie Williams and Dulcie Gibbs in the collection of the National Museum of Australia, illustrated in Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route, Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2010, p.54.

Wally Caruana

This painting is sold with accompanying Warakurna Artists documentation and photocopies of the publications in which the work was illustrated or referenced.

Text courtesy Bonhams

Indigenous eyes from Warakurna rekindle the past

2011-07-01T10:18:00.008+09:30

Jean Burke's Camel Lady, 2011. Picture: Warakurna Artists Source

By Nicholas Rothwell
The Australian - 1 July 2011

PAINTED in a dazzle of acrylic colours, exploring a bold set of hybrid styles, telling familiar stories from fresh perspectives, the latest treasure trove of western desert artworks acquired by the National Museum of Australia could hardly be more defiantly cross-cultural.

The 32 "history paintings" from remote Warakurna community were shown for the first time in May at Darwin's Outstation gallery in an exhibition with an intriguingly specific title: All the Stories Got into Our Minds and Eyes. The expression gives a clue to the nature of the project, the result of a burst of creative energy at the local art centre during the first months of this year. These are acts of witness; indigenous accounts of famous episodes from mainstream Australia's advance into the remote desert. They depict the colonising project, seen from the frontier's other side. Each painting takes a well-known cameo and reinterprets it: the coming of the missionaries to Warburton in the 1930s; the construction of the desert highways by Len Beadell and his construction crew; even the 1986 Midnight Oil remote community concert tour. Here they are, all events with their established Western narratives, retold through desert eyes.

The yellow graders and bulldozers slice cleanly through the pale sand in senior artist Jean Burke's depiction of the first road-building schemes, undertaken when she was still a young girl at the mission school.

A vast Hercules military transport plane, deep olive green, sits on the pink and orange hued Warburton airstrip in Eunice Porter's snapshot of her own youthful memories: "We all went to see; lots of people sitting down watching the big army plane coming in." And there they are, in her painting's foreground, shown desert-style through arced symbols rather than human-figure forms.

This mode of narrative art-making has a short, important history in the far desert regions where the Ngaanyatjarra- and Pitjantjatjara-speaking peoples live. Their homes today are the communities and outstations stretching from Warburton in the west through the grand range systems to the Stuart Highway.

Their contact history is also short, yet marked out by events of overwhelming significance: the arrival of the early explorers and prospectors; the beginning of small-scale mining in the 1960s; the passage into their lands of strange white loners such as Lasseter, in search of his gold reef, or the "camel lady", Robyn Davidson, author of Tracks, whose journey through the sandhills in the 70s is recorded in punctilious detail in one of the collection's standout works.

It was in 2002 that this style of "history painting" began. That was the year the Warburton Art Project staged a remarkable show to inaugurate the exhibition program at its Tjulyuru gallery, an imposing structure built close to the first mission compound and hard by a set of traditional sacred sites.

The exhibition, titled Mission Time, presented the community's visual record of its history. After years spent recording the potent narratives and journeys of their tjukurrpa, or dreaming time, the Warburton artists changed course, and poured out a set of fresh, naive-seeming images.

They depicted the old church buildings and enclosures of their childhood, both from a traditional, aerial perspective and in Western style, with horizon and vanishing point. They recorded their memories of the dormitories and the shearing yards, and scenes from their bush holiday trips.

The star of Mission Time was a remarkable artist named June Richards, a natural draughtsman whose poignant works possessed great charm and elusive depth.
Richards went on to win the state prize in the WA Premier's Indigenous Art Awards in 2008. She died last year and the new Warakurna history project is in great part a tribute to her: a homage driven by Porter, the chief artist at Warakurna, and Richards's aunt.

"We see these new history paintings as directly linked to the Warburton Art Project's past exhibitions," says Warakurna co-ordinator Edwina Circuitt. The link highlights a key feature of the far desert painting movement. Even though mainstream collectors, gallerists and curators tend to classify artists by their home communities, the region is a continuum; a realm through which men and women move freely, and through which their family connections extend much like the tracks of the old dreaming stories.

The artists don't share only themes from ancestral times, but recent memories as well. Thus Richards, in Mission Time, painted a giant transport aircraft on the Warburton airstrip that is very likely the same Hercules her aunt records in the new show.

Another of the most striking works in the Warakurna series is a realistic depiction of a murky incident that unfolded at nearby Wingellina in the 60s, when a white prospector died in a dynamiting accident. It is painted by Burke in dramatic fashion, with shock waves radiating outwards from the blast and startled onlookers surrounding the detonation scene. This is the same episode that formed the subject of the prominent desert artist Nyakul Dawson's signature work, Bill's Story, painted a decade ago in concert with senior Wingellina men.

The history paintings flesh out a picture of life in the Ngaanyatjarra-region communities for outside eyes. They tell a history known until now, if at all, through mainstream chroniclers. As such, they are of natural interest to state museums and galleries, which have recently developed a strong appetite for preserving and displaying Aboriginal stories.

This enthusiasm is perhaps most evident at the National Museum of Australia, which runs a strong program of events and exhibitions aimed at documenting aspects of indigenous experience. Its symposium on the 40s scientific expedition to Arnhem Land was a landmark event in studies of the Australian frontier.

The museum has also been to the fore in acquiring substantial desert collections that record the indigenous experience of contact times. The exhibition of paintings made along the Canning Stock Route, which it displayed last year, foregrounded this new orientation, and the museum is considering similar large-scale projects in two further desert regions.

Such a track record made the NMA a natural home for the Warakurna paintings, which were consigned for commercial exhibit to the innovative Outstation gallery. But even before the paintings were hanging on his walls, gallery director Matt Ward was able to announce that they had been bought en bloc by anonymous collectors, and donated to the NMA.

This trend in the museum sector is significant for the network of indigenous art centres now established throughout the desert, Top End, Kimberley and Queensland Cape country. With the near-eclipse of the private market, institutional buyers of art take on ever greater prominence for these publicly funded outposts.

Art centres have adjusted to the bursting of the indigenous art trade bubble by reconfiguring their activities. Many now regard their primary task as cultural preservation, whether by taking old artists and their younger families on trips to remote country or by recording songs and stories and amassing archives of oral history and tradition.

Some have initiated social remediation projects, which attract welfare agency support. Some are working closely with museums, galleries and academic researchers. The likelihood is that the art centres will increasingly become "culture bureaus", more than production houses for the painting movement. The upside of this trend is plain: members of the younger generation in remote communities are encouraged to engage with and preserve their traditions, and to see a link between Aboriginal life and the modern economy.

The downside is perhaps less evident: when a community becomes a cultural museum, and indigenous identity is something performed for outside consumption, we are in dangerous terrain. Such are the dilemmas facing both the makers and the brokers of traditional Aboriginal art in the times ahead.

Is the historic past the necessary new horizon for community-based indigenous arts? Warakurna community certainly has material aplenty for exhibitions and collections such as the "history paintings" show. It lies close to the rock holes where the pioneer explorer Ernest Giles camped on his despairing drive into the west.

Its landscape is the home of the Giles weather station, built at the foot of the Rawlinson Ranges more than 50 years ago, and depicted in Dorcas Bennett's gently coloured topographical canvas in this collection. And in the 70s it was the destination of an exodus launched by a group of Warburton mission families who wished to return to their traditional lands. It has seen miners; cameleers and dignitaries pass through in the decades since.

The Ngaanyatjarra societies of the far desert have always had their antique past, a memory space that stretches into multiple dimensions and directions, and remains beyond easy conceptual description in our vocabulary today. They also have a history to remember: decades of interventions, plans and projects. But do they have an assured trajectory into the future?

The present landscape is bleak. It is one of cutbacks in key economic programs and haphazard policy-making that seems almost designed, in the long term, to clear the deserts and destroy Aboriginal community life. It would be a bitter twist of fate if our society fails to devise a stable and coherent existence for the remote societies of the Centre even as their distinctive understanding of contemporary history gains in appeal.

Desert Mob 2011

2011-06-23T18:25:00.004+09:30

Desert Mob is the premier Indigenous art event for this region showcasing work from artists across the Desart membership.

Desert Mob includes the Symposium, the MarketPlace and the prestigious Desert Mob exhibition representing new works from Art Centres throughout Central Australia. Desert Mob is presented by the Araluen Arts Centre in partnership with Desart.

Friday 9 September 2011
Desert Mob Symposium: Stories from the Artists
10-3pm, Araluen Theatre
The Desert Mob Symposium: Stories from the Artists celebrates the artists behind the art on display at Desert Mob and the place of community, country and culture in the artists' lives and works.

Together with interstate guests, artists from art centres accross Central Australia present stories, images and films about their country and their art.

To register for the event click here - http://www.desart.com.au/DesertMob2011SymposiumRegistration/tabid/72/Default.aspx

Desert Mob Exhibition

Official Opening
Speeches 4:45pm with Galleries opening at 5:00pm.

The Desert Mob exhibition showcases the latest works from each of the participating Art Centres and includes paintings by some of the leading artists in Australia, together with traditional artefacts, weavings, ceramics and other crafts. Each Art Centre exhibits works by some of its senior artists, together with works by emerging or younger artists.
Exhibition continues until 23 October 2011.

Saturday 10 September 2011

Desert Mob MarketPlace
10-2pm, Araluen Arts Centre
Desert Mob MarketPlace is a large outdoor market with stalls selling affordable Aboriginal arts and crafts and related products, such as T shirts, bags, books and calendars from Desart member Art Centres. Popular with both locals and tourists, the MarketPlace offers a chance of some excellent bargains to early browsers.

For more information visit: http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/arts/ascp/araluen/galleries/desertmob.html

Painting

Wakalpuka 2011 by Tjunka Lewis. 762mm x 1016mm: acrylic on canvas
Copyright the artist. Photo Warakurna Artists

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2011

2011-06-16T17:38:00.004+09:30

About the Fair
Held from the 12 to 14th of August 2011 in Darwin on Larrakia Lands at the Convention Centre in the newly developed Waterfront Precinct the Fair coincides with the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, (NATSIAA’S) and the Darwin Festival, a time when the city of Darwin becomes the focal point of the nation for visitors with an interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island arts.

Established in 2007, the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair exists to provide Aboriginal owned Arts Centres a platform to market the works of the artists they represent. The Fair has grown rapidly since 2007 when 16 art centres participated, to 19 in 2008, 32 in 2009 and around 40 art centres for the 2010 event.

The Art Fair provides a unique opportunity for arts industry buyers and the public to purchase art directly from the Indigenous owned and incorporated art centres, to see the work of emerging as well as established artists, to meet the artists and to find out about the variety of different cultural groups producing art, as well as the range of styles, mediums and products available. There will be paintings on canvas, bark paintings, works on paper, timber and metal sculptures, limited edition prints, didjeridus, fibre art and jewelry.

The diversity of Indigenous art at the Fair is remarkable!

Mark your calendar!
Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair - 12-14 August 2011
Darwin Convention Centre, Waterfront Precinct

Contact Us
Waringarri Arts
t: +61 (08) 9168 2212 m: 0417 958 121
e: admin@waringarriarts.com.au

http://www.darwinaboriginalartfair.com.au/cms/

Image
Wakalpuka 2011 by Tommy Mitchell. 762mm x 762mm: acrylic on canvas
Courtesy Warakurna Artists

Living Water - Contemporary Art of the Far Western Desert

2011-05-25T11:17:00.005+09:30

Living Water Contemporary Art of the Far Western Desert. A modern art movement originated at Papunya in 1971, which has since transformed the way we see the land and the history of art in Australia. Almost forty years after the genesis of the Western Desert art movement, its epicentre has dramatically shifted from Papunya in the Northern Territory to the Pintupi homelands of Kintore and Kiwirrkura in the Gibson Desert, and to communities that lie hundreds of kilometres to the south and west in far-flung reaches of South Australia and Western Australia (the Far Western Desert).

During the first decade of the 21st century, Pintupi, Spinifex, Anangu, Yulparija and Martu artists have developed a dynamic and fresh expression of Western Desert Art. The male and female artists not only share close kinship, social, linguistic and ritual interconnections and lived experience of desert country built up during pujiman (nomadic, bush) days but also have parallel experiences of making art with introduced materials for the commercial market. Their paintings — bearers of sanctity — resonate with the shock of the ancient made new and tell tjukurrpa (stories) associated with special places in their ngurra (country).This dramatic new wave of acrylic painting is the focus of Living Water, comprising the NGV’s 150th anniversary gift from the Felton Bequest of 107 paintings.

Aboriginal people from across the Western Desert use the term ‘living water’ to describe water sources, including rock holes and soakage waters that are fed by underground springs. The path of these springs was created by the ancestral beings of the tjukurrpa (Dreaming) as they themselves journeyed underground, their entry into the earth often marking the site of current day water sources. ‘Living water’ is revered also because it does not seem to be affected by the harsh conditions above the ground that the people themselves have to endure.

24 May 2011 - 28 May 2012
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square
Level G

Tommy Mitchell
Ngaanyatjarra born c.1943
Kurlilypurru 2009
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
152.0 x 212.0 cm
Felton Bequest, 2011
© Tommy Mitchell, courtesy Warakurna Artists Aboriginal Corporation

Text courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria

Media - http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/24/3225368.htm

ABC 7.30 Report on Warakurna Artists

2011-05-14T16:19:00.004+09:30

To view the ABC's 7.30 Report on Warakurna Artist's History Painting exhibition please follow the link below.

Click link - http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/05/13/3216740.htm

Painting

Lasseter 2010 by Eunice Porter. 76x101cm acrylic on canvas

Opening Speech - History Paintings - All the Stories Got into our Minds and Eyes

2011-05-09T17:14:00.006+09:30

Dr Mike Pickering from the National Museum of Australia has given us permission to publish his exhibition opening speech of Warakurna Artists History Paintings - All the Stories Got into our Minds and Eyes last Friday at Outstation Gallery in Darwin.

I’d like to acknowledge the Larrakia traditional owners of Darwin.

I’d also like to acknowledge the artists and their families represented in this exhibition and, through sharing their stories, act as cultural ambassadors for the Ngaanyatjarra and Pitjantjatjara people, past, present and future.

I’m honoured to have been invited to open this exhibition.

Often, when delivering opening addresses, curators will refer to movements in the theory and practice of collecting institutions. We try to convince the listener to believe that there is a consensus amongst many industry professionals as to what is happening in the world of Indigenous art - and then that the consensus reflects their own opinion.

In reality, however, there are as many different views as there are curators. With this in mind what I give now is, unashamedly, my own opinion. I invite and encourage you to disagree with it.

Some personal background is needed. I come from an archaeological and anthropological background – with the bulk of my experience here in the territory through land councils, AAPA, and research.

My field experiences and research interests have largely focussed on peoples’ sacred and secular relationships to lands and waters, on material culture, and on repatriation. All in all I have a very materialistic, cultural geographic and, and culture historical approach to Aboriginal cultures.

Naturally, I have carried this bias with me into my Museum life. I look for certain attributes, both in existing collections and in the acquisition of new materials, that may be different to those sought by practitioners from fine arts and art history backgrounds.

So what do I look for? I seek narratives - stories. To me the object, be it two or three dimensional, has to act as a mediator for stories if it is to have a place in the museum. For me, the object serves as an icon, encapsulating many meanings and many potential stories. I want to be encouraged to look through the work or object to see the sacred and secular histories and events that are communicated through it. I want to be informed about the creators of the works, the events and stories that have shaped their lives and influenced their expressions, their cultural backgrounds. The price of the work is not important, the fame of the artist is not important, what is important is the story the artist wants to tell

I see objects as history books, biographies, and sacred texts, - as manuscripts and documentaries. These attributes matter more to me, as a ‘Museum’ Curator, than the media, or commercial popularity of Aboriginal art and material culture. Indeed, to me, in presenting Indigenous artworks without knowledge of their accompanying narratives is the equivalent of tearing the cover off a book, nailing the cover to a wall, and throwing away the two hundred pages of text.

As I’ve hinted ‘I am biased’, I am a traditionalist.

Where am I leading? Everything I look for is present in the works represented here. They are, of course, beautiful works of art in their own right. I admire the control of the medium, the balance and complexity of the designs, and their overall aesthetics.

I am also reminded that the application of new forms, techniques, technology, and media in the creation of art is a continuation of Indigenous artistic traditions of ‘speaking through art’ that has always embraced new ideas, forms and methods. To produce art is ‘the tradition’, not the technique or material.

I am particularly interested in the strong figurative elements in many of the works. Much appreciation of Aboriginal art has been directed towards ‘iconographic’ elements – circles, lines, dots, clan designs. For the lay viewer, the typical museum visitor, iconography requires mediation through curatorial interpretation. In figurative works however, curatorial mediation is reduced as the imagery clearly conveys the story directly to the viewer. This visual element, complemented by a narrative from the artist – from the person who has experienced or has been directly affected by the event portrayed, means that the Aboriginal voice has precedence – and to facilitate such direct representation – the Indigenous voice - must be a main aim of curators in the future.

Experience shows there is a public demand for this experience. Audiences wish to hear what happened from Aboriginal people themselves. The recent success of the Yiwarra Kuju: Canning Stock Route exhibition at the National Museum of Australia and the success of the Museum’s Papunya exhibition in China in 2010 is testimony to this demand, both nationally and internationally. Visitors repeatedly comment on how nice it was to know what the paintings were about for a change, as opposed to minimalist labels devoid of cultural, biographic, and historical contexts. Visitors feel empowered.

This exhibition directly addresses that need for knowledge increasingly demanded by museum audiences – in providing the stories it becomes more than just art, and its true value is much much more than the sum total of the sale price.

It is now no secret that the collection has been acquired and donated to the National Museum of Australia. As well as the thanks of the National Museum of Australia I give my own heartfelt thanks to the donors, who wish to remain anonymous. This is an exhibition I can use. This is an exhibition the public wants. They have recognised what will be soon acknowledged as a nationally important collection. They have recognised the importance of the artist’s voices. I thank the donors for their generosity, and I thank the artists for so generously sharing their stories with us.

Dr Mike Pickering

Warakurna Artists History Paintings Gifted to the National Museum of Australia

2011-05-05T09:37:00.015+09:30

An important series of paintings by Warakurna Artists has been donated to the National Museum of Australia. The paintings are currently being exhibited at Outstation Gallery in Darwin as an exhibition entitled “History Paintings - all the stories got into our minds and eyes.”

“I feel happy when I do long-time story painting. When I was in school at Warburton and going out with my family in the school holidays, we saw a big plane that came and landed. So we all went to have a look. And when I got married to my husband at Warakurna, I heard about Lasseter trooping around. I have painted these stories for you. Before I was doing Tjukurrpa paintings, and now I paint history paintings from my memories.”
Eunice Porter, Warakurna Artists Chairperson.

The collection gifted to the museum consists of 33 paintings that recount events from the last hundred years in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. In a dramatic break from the customary Tjukurrpa (dreaming) stories traditionally painted for the art market, these paintings depict stories about first contact experiences, early explorers, missionaries, weapons testing and the homelands movement. The collection also addresses contemporary life on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, exploring the evolution of land rights and contemporary art production. One painting even recounts the time that Midnight Oil came to play in Warakuna in the 1980s.

"The experience of the National Museum of Australia has shown that this is the sort of exhibition the public wants. Works characterised by artists own narratives. The donors have recognised the importance of the artist’s voices in communicating the meaning of their art. They have seen beyond the surface to the rich stories of culture, history and biography that the works encapsulate. In this they are to be congratulated for their openness and foresight"
Dr Mike Pickering, National Museum of Australia.

Individually the paintings tell some remarkable stories, but collectively they provide an even more remarkable body of work; a collection which explores 20th Century history from a Yarnangu (Aboriginal) perspective. The artists hoped the paintings would be kept to together, and through Outstation Gallery a collector was found who shared the artist’s vision.

“It's important for people to understand that there is no collection like this in any Australian institution at present. These history paintings mark a distinct statement from Yarnangu artists that they are not satisfied simply painting for a market, they want to paint for an audience. Their history, they are telling us, is our history. This collection has effectively been gifted twice; once by the Warakurna artists to the nation, and then again by some visionary collectors to the National Museum.”
John Carty, National Museum of Australia

The exhibition, and historic donation to the National Museum, comes at a critical time in the ongoing debates around the Aboriginal art market and the place of art centres within it. While private dealers continue to question the institutional support art centres receive, the simple truth is that this significant collection of paintings would never have been produced outside the art centre system. While private dealers encourage artists to produce, and reproduce, saleable paintings, art centres remain unique in their capacity – their charter- to also support a broader artistic vision.

“In art centres such as Warakurna, artists are free to explore new ideas and a diversity of art practices that are not always tied to commercial outcomes. Through this collection the Warakurna artists argues persuasively that art centres remain the incubators of innovation, experimentation and risk taking that is essential to any kind of worthwhile, and sustainable, artistic practice. Most private dealers, for all their rhetoric, just skim the cream from this process.”
John Carty, National Museum of Australia

Warakurna Artists is the pre-eminent Aboriginal art centre in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. Whilst enjoying strong commercial success, the art centre has been notable in recent years for the way its staff and Aboriginal management group have guided the organisation according to a strong ethical and Yarnangu (Aboriginal) framework. Warakurna Artists has maintained a strong focus on the broader social value, beyond basic market-driven considerations, of contemporary artistic practice. This exhibition, and the historic collection of paintings soon to be housed at the National Museum of Australia, are a proud expression of this conviction.

Dr Mike Pickering from the National Museum of Australia will be opening the exhibition and Ken Shepherd and Graham Nelson from Warakurna Artists will be speaking about the work and the Art Centre.

To download a copy of the exhibition's catalogue please click on this link - http://www.outstation.com.au/about/

EXHIBITION DETAILS
Outstation – art from art centres
Opening Friday May 6th at 6pm
Showing May 6th – June 3rd 2011
8 Parap Place (Upstairs, Enter via Gregory St)
Parap, NT 0820
P: 08 8981 4822 F: 08 8981 4877
E: http://www.blogger.com/info@outstation.com.au
W: http://www.outstation.com.au/

FOR MORE INFORMATION - Matt Ward 08 8981 4822

Ken Shepherd with his history painting at Outstation gallery in Darwin. photo courtesy Outstation gallery

Warakurna Artists Launches New Website

2011-04-28T16:17:00.006+09:30

Warakurna Artists invites you to visit our new website.

We are offering select works from collectable and emerging artists online.

Perfect for special gifts and/or for the collector

Enjoy viewing works from our dynamic and innovative Art Centre located on the edge of the Gibson Desert.

http://www.warakurnaartists.com.au/

Paintings

Lirrun 2011 by Myra Yurtiwa Cook. Acrylic on Canvas. 38.5 x 76.2cm
Patjarrtja 2011 by Tjunka Lewis. Acrylic on Canvas. 38.5 x 76.2cm

Copyright the artists. Courtesy Warakurna Artists

History Paintings - All the Stories got into our minds and eyes

2011-04-27T17:36:00.003+09:30

Outstation - art from art centres and Warakurna Artists are proud to present

History Paintings - All the Stories got into our minds and eyes

An important series of paintings by Warakurna Artists that explore 'history' from a Yarnangu perspective from the last hundred years in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.

Opening Friday May 6th at 6pm

Showing May 6th – June 3rd 2011

8 Parap Place (Upstairs, Enter via Gregory St)
Parap, NT 0820

P: 08 8981 4822 F: 08 8981 4877
E: info@outstation.com.au
W: http://www.outstation.com.au/

Helicopter ride with Brooksy 2011 by Ken Shepherd. 101.6cm x 101.6cm. Acrylic on Canvas

Desart in the Park - Art Centre Market Alice Springs

2011-04-12T18:19:00.008+09:30

Warakurna Artists will have a stall at this year's DESART IN THE PARK

5-8 pm /20th April 2011

Location
Desert Park, Alice Springs

For directions - http://www.alicespringsdesertpark.com.au/

Purchase great art and craft from Aboriginal owned Art Centres

Great Food and Music

FREE EVENT FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

Tjitji Canvaspa - Kids Paintings Sale

2011-03-21T10:10:00.006+09:30

The kids come to the Art Centre on Thursday afternoon to participate in the Tjitji Painting Program. They like painting swimming in rockholes, their homes, animals and Tjukurrpa.

Their beautiful work is available online until 25th March 2011 - www.warakurnaartists.com.au

Paintings by Nathan Jackson and Azaliah Golding

Exhibition of Warakurna Artists in France

2011-03-15T16:16:00.003+09:30

IDAIA is delighted to announce their first exhibition outside of Australia in association with Warakurna Artists and co-organised Lyon-based partner gallery Galerie Kungka.

“Warakurna Artists is one of the most exciting Aboriginal art communities from the Australian Desert. Recent years have seen the rise of their emerging senior artists whose paintings combine vivid colours and such an expressive force, like powerful gems illustrating the western desert painting movement's depth and strength.” – Solenne Ducos-Lamotte, IDAIA’s Director, co-curator of the exhibition

Warakurna Artists has a strong committment to cultural transmission and this exhibition will showcase works side by side by younger emerging artists such as Ken Shepherd and senior artists Tjapartji Bates, Myra Yurtiwa Cook, Dora Waynatjura Lane and Tommy Mitchell. The beautiful paintings are visually diverse in style highlighting the artist's creative interpretation of their Tjukurrpa (law and culture)and connection to country.

Galerie Kungka is committed to ethical and quality practices and only works with IDAIA to source artworks from official Aboriginal art centres and equivalent recognised ethical organisations.

Presentation pack available, please contact info@idaia.com.au

"Warakurna Artists : Une Géographie Secrète"

MAPRA, Center for Visual Arts in Lyon, France
www.mapra-art.org
21st April – 7th May 2011
&
M.A.C, Center for Contemporary Art in Pérouges, South of France
www.mac-perouges.fr
12th May – 22nd May 2011

CONTACT IDAIA:
WWW.IDAIA.COM.AU
INFO@IDAIA.COM.AU

NEW ADDRESS:
LEVEL 1 SUITE 107
BONDI JUNCTION NSW 2022
AUSTRALIA

AU: +61 (0)280060262
FR: +33 (0)970445000
SKYPE: IDAIA.COM.AU

Painting
Walpirnta 2010 by Ken Shepherd. 1016mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas
Copyright Ken Shepherd. Photo Edwina Circuitt / Copyright Warakurna Artists

Warakurna Artists History Painting Exhibition - Darwin

2011-03-09T17:03:00.011+09:30

Outstation - art from art centres and Warakurna Artists are proud to present

History Paintings - All the Stories got into our minds and eyes

An important series of paintings by Warakurna Artists that explore 'history' from a Yarnangu perspective from the last hundred years in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.

Opening Friday May 6th at 6pm

Showing May 6th – June 3rd 2011

8 Parap Place (Upstairs, Enter via Gregory St)
Parap, NT 0820

P: 08 8981 4822 F: 08 8981 4877
E: info@outstation.com.au
W: http://www.outstation.com.au/

Paintings

Cut-line. Making the Gun Barrel Highway with Len Beadell 2011 by Jean Burke. 50.8 x 152.4 cm. Acrylic on Canvas

Helicopter ride with Brooksy 2011 by Ken Shepherd. 76.2 x 101.6cm. Acrylic on Canvas

Grayden 2011 by Judith Chambers. 101.6 x 101.6cm. Acrylic on Canvas

Hercules and Jeep in Warbuton 2011 by Eunice Yunurupa Porter. 76.2 x 76.2cm. Acrylic on Canvas

New Gallery Opens in the Gibson Desert

2010-12-19T09:30:00.005+09:30

Warakurna Artists open new Yurliya Gallery

Spectacular ground-breaking gallery and interpretive centre opens in the Gibson Desert

Tourists driving the Great Central Road through the Gibson Desert in Central Australia will now be able to visit an exciting new ‘desert style’ gallery.

Warakurna Artists Aboriginal Corporation’s unique Yurliya Gallery is located in Warakurna Community’s roadhouse complex, 330km west of Uluru in Western Australia.

“It’s a cultural and artistic oasis, right here in Warakurna. An opportunity for people to experience firsthand some of the most exciting art making in the country and to learn about Ngaanyatjarra Culture” says Warakurna Artists Manager Edwina Circuitt.

The funky ‘desert’ gallery offers a range of paintings, fibre art and traditional wooden artefacts for sale. Visitors will be treated to interpretive materials designed by the artists, including a multi-media film made by local women giving an insight into Ngaanyatjarra culture and artistic practices.

The gallery redevelopment was funded by Warakurna Community Council, Ngaanyatjarra Council and Warakurna Artists. Local community members were involved in the design and construction of the space. Training will be ongoing with Warakurna Artist’s arts-workers receiving training in customer service and sales so they will be able to run and work in the gallery.

Warakurna Artists Art Centre is owned and governed by Aboriginal people. The new gallery offers enormous potential for further enterprise development in Warakurna Community, including cultural tourism prospects. These initiatives will be overseen by Ngaanyatjarra people and will contribute to long term economic and employment opportunities for community members. This is a good news story for Warakurna Community.

A new espresso machine is also on its way to Warakurna Roadhouse and there will be some desert baristas making cafe’ latte and macchiato. It will be the most exciting cultural and coffee experience in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands!

“Our people are so proud of this gallery; they put their heart into building it. This gallery is here for our future, for our children. Our paintings tell our stories, they are our memories and a hand of friendship to you. We look forward to seeing everyone here. Come and visit us” say Eunice Yunurupa Porter, Warakurna Artists Chairwoman.

For more information about the gallery visit Warakurna Artists website – http://www.warakurnaartists.com.au/

Visiting Warakurna Artist's Yurliya Gallery

2010-12-15T10:40:00.018+09:30

Yuwawu, pitja-ya Ngaanyatjarra ngurrakutu - Hello, welcome to the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.

Warakurna Artists is proud to announce the opening of our new Yurliya Gallery. The gallery offers visitors a unique cultural and artistic experience. We have paintings, hand woven baskets, sculpture and wooden artefacts for sale.

The gallery is located in Warakurna Roadhouse.

Warakurna Community is nestled amongst the spectacular Rawlinson Ranges in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Western Australia. We are only 330kms west of Uluru on the Great Desert Road.

YURLIYA
The word Yurliya is the name given by Ngaanyatjarra people for the spectacular Rawlinson Ranges.

HOW TO GET THERE AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION

WARAKURNA ROADHOUSE
Warakurna Community is a closed community. However the Warakurna Roadhouse is located outside the community on the Great Central Road and visitors are welcome.

Trading Hours (CENTRAL STANDARD TIME)
Monday to Friday 8.30am – 6.00pm
Saturday-Sunday 9.00am – 3.00pm
Public Holidays 8.30am – 12.30pm / Gallery Closed

Fuel
Diesel and Opal fuel is available. If fuel is required outside of trading hours the fee of $20 will apply per vehicle.

Stores
Takeaway food, drinks and basic grocery items

Accommodation
4 x self contained units (sleeps 2-5 people)
10 x backpacker style rooms
Powered camp sites
An afterhours service is available (until 8pm CST), by going to the managers residence for camping and accommodation

Bookings essential

ROADHOUSE CONTACT DETAILS
Phone 08 8956 7344
Fax 08 8956 2850
Email: warakurnaroadhouse@bigpond.com

Location
Warakurna/Giles
Great Central Road, WA
Postal Address
C/- Warakurna Community,
PMB 62, via ALICE SPRINGS NT 0872

PERMITS
All visitors to the region must obtain a permit prior to travelling the Great Central Road. As well as granting you permission to travel in the area, your permit supplies you with important information about safe transit and relevant Ngaanyatjarra Council by-laws.

Obtaining Permits

Ngaanyatjarra Council
ngcouncil@ngaanyatjarra.org.au
08 8950 1711

Ngaanyatjarra Council Permits are also available online at - www.dia.wa.gov.au/Land/Permits/

Please review the relevant Ngaanyatjarra Council by-laws prior to your visit – http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/legislation/statutes.nsf/main_mrtitle_1844_homepage.html

Visitors travelling through to the Northern Territory will also require a permit from the Central Lands Council (CLC)

Central Lands Council
08 8951 6320
http://www.clc.org.au/

ROADS, SAFTEY AND CULTURAL PROTOCOLS
The Great Central Road is unsealed. 4WD recommended. Changing weather conditions & traffic volumes can adversely affect road surfaces, please drive carefully at all times.

To enjoy your visit please ensure that you familiarise yourself with some general principles for respectful interaction with local people and land. The Ngaanyatjarra people of the Central Desert are strongly committed to their society and culture. They are pleased to have other persons travel through their Lands (Aboriginal reserve). However they ask that you observe the following rules:

- All visitors travelling the Great Central Roads require a visiting permit and are advised to respect the Ngaanyatjarra Council by-laws.

- As a general rule Aboriginal people do not like their photographs taken, unless given permission to do so by the individuals.

- Bury all camp fires and dispose of your rubbish at one the three roadhouses on the Great Central Road.

- Please check with Ngaanyatjarraku Shire if the roads are closed after heavy rain – fines apply
08 8956 7966

- Always carry extra water, fuel and spare tyres. Mechanical assistance is not always available.

For more information about the Ngaanyatjarra Lands -
http://www.ngaanyatjarraku.wa.gov.au/

VISIT THE GILES WEATHER STATION
The Giles Weather Station is a fully functioning meteorological observation station based at Warakurna Community. Visitors can schedule a tour of the station and view the daily release of the observation ballon.

For more information about visiting the Giles Weather Station, including contact details please visit - http://www.bom.gov.au/sa/giles/index.shtml

IMAGES - Photos of Artists, Gallery and Landscapes / Copyright Warakurna Artists - photos Edwina Circuitt

Tommy Mitchell's Walu mural located on one of the heritage listed buildings at the Giles Weather Station and Mr Mitchell in front of his mural / Copyright and photos by Pamela McGrath

Warakurna Artists Yurliya Gallery Opening and Christmas Party

2010-12-13T18:22:00.017+09:30

Photos from Warakurna Artists Yurliya Gallery opening and Christmas Party......

The funky feature wall in the gallery is a detail from Carol Maayatja Golding's 'Walu' painting.

Jean Burke, Nancy Jackson and Eunice Porter creating a sand drawing for the gallery's Tali Box installation.
Waiting for the festivities to begin!
Wingellina teacher Belinda.

Nina from Ngaanyatjarra Media came along with Roma Butler and Cynthia Burke to document the event.
Karen, Winifred, Rosalie, Erica and DG.
Senior artist and Warakurna Artists Director Tommy Mitchell

Jennine from Warakurna School and Eleanor from Warakurna Artists
Mr Mitchell opening the gallery
Eunice Porter and Tommy opening the gallery and wishing everyone a happy Christmas
Wes from Tjarlirli Arts and his dad Don

Great food!
Jody, Kate, Alex and Silvana from Warburton
Mr Mitchell and Edwina
Ben and Jody from Wilurarra Creative (formally Warburton Youth Arts) set up a photo booth for the opening. Trisha and Mantuwa having fun getting their photos taken.
You can check out the pics via - http://www.wilurarra.com
Thanks Ben and Jody!

The crowd watching the gallery's interpretive DVD.

Yurliya Gallery
The Yurliya Gallery also serves as an interpretive centre, offering visitors a cultural induction experience.

Papa wiya! No dogs allowed.......this one might like to tell us otherwise.

Ben Fox and Kate Fielding

The Pampa from Wanarn Aged Care came along to the opening.

Images taken by Ben Fox and Edwina Circuitt

Warakurna Artists Christmas Special 2010

2010-12-08T18:40:00.003+09:30

Available online - 1st December 2010

http://www.warakurnaartists.com.au/

Paintings - $85 - $500

T-Shirts - $25 kids / $30 adults

Bags - $15

Aprons - $25

Postage sent via Australia Post. Please note that our mail-plane comes once a week. We recommend you get your orders in early so your presents are delivered in time for Christmas.

CONTACT US
Edwina or Eleanor
email: art@warakurnaartists.com.au
PMB 29, via Alice Springs NT 0872
PH: 61 + (0)8 8955 8099
FX: 61 + (0)8 8955 8399

Artworks
Myra Yurtiwa Cook
Ben Holland
Tjapartji Bates
Copyright the artist / photo and text Warakurna Artists

Paintings from Warakurna and Wanarn Exhibition, Sydney Opening

2010-11-12T16:23:00.003+09:30

Aboriginal & Pacific Art, in association with Warakurna Artists, WA invites you to this group exhibition of new works.

Paintings from Warakurna and Wanarn

13 - 27 November 2010
Opening Saturday 13 November 3-6pm

Please join artists Ken Shepherd and Tommy Mitchell and the art centre manager Edwina Circuitt to celebrate on the opening.

Featuring artists: Myra Yurtiwa Cook, Dora Waynatjura Lane, Carol Maayatja Golding, Tjapartji Bates, Tjunka Lewis, Tommy Mitchell, Ken Shepherd and Devon Yates.

Aboriginal and Pacific Art
2 Danks Street
Waterloo NSW 2017
t +61 2 9699 2211
f +61 2 9699 2277
info@aboriginalpacificart.com.au
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11 - 5

Artworks

Wakalpuka 2010 by Tommy Mitchell. 1016mm x 2134mm: acrylic on canvas

Tjukurla Pirni 2010 by Carol Maayatja Golding. 508mm x 1016mm: acrylic on canvas

Walu 2010 by Carol Maayatja Golding. 762mm x 1016mm: acrylic on canvas

Lirrunnga 2010 by Dora Waynatjura Lane. 508mm x 762mm: acrylic on canvas

Artworks copyright the artists.
Text and photographs copyright Warakurna Artists

Desert Country - Art Gallery of South Australia

2010-10-22T08:10:00.008+09:30

DESERT COUNTRY EXHIBITION
29 October 2010 – 26 January 2011

Drawn entirely from the extensive holdings of Aboriginal art from the Art Gallery of South Australia’s pioneering collection, Desert Country is the first exhibition to chart the forty year evolution of the internationally acclaimed Australian desert painting movement, and to demonstrate the unstoppable reaches of this remarkable art movement.

Beginning with the exquisite watercolours of Albert Namatjira and his contemporaries, followed with rare examples of the first experimental paintings by its ground-breaking masters in 1971, Desert Country highlights the cultural fluidity between the principal Aboriginal art producing regions of the desert in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

The exhibition is proudly sponsored by Santos, the Gallery’s Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander collection sponsor.

Tickets
Adult $10, Concession $8, Member $6, Students free thanks to Santos, Child (U16) Free, Season ticket: $10 available to Members only.

Art Gallery of South Australia
North Terrace
Adelaide SA 5000

T +61 8 8207 7000
F +61 8 8207 7070
E agsainformation@artgallery.sa.gov.au
Open daily 10am to 5pm
(closed 25 December)

IMAGES:
Walu 2009 by Tommy Mitchell. 1524mm x 2134mm acrylic on canvas.

Tommy Mitchell with his painting. Copyright: Warakurna Artists / Photo: Edwina Circuitt

Desert Country 2010 calenders available from the Art Gallery of South Australia

Text copyright AGSA.

Paintings from Warakurna and Wanarn, Sydney Exhibition

2010-10-21T11:36:00.007+09:30

Aboriginal & Pacific Art, in association with Warakurna Artists, WA invites you to this group exhibition of new works.

Paintings from Warakurna and Wanarn

13 - 27 November 2010
Opening Saturday 13 November 3-6pm

Please join artists Ken Shepherd, Tommy Mitchell and Devon Yates and the art centre manager Edwina Circuitt to celebrate on the opening.

Featuring artists: Myra Yurtiwa Cook, Dora Waynatjura Lane, Carol Maayatja Golding, Tjapartji Bates, Tjunka Lewis, Tommy Mitchell, Ken Shepherd, Devon Yates,

Aboriginal and Pacific Art
2 Danks Street
Waterloo NSW 2017
t +61 2 9699 2211
f +61 2 9699 2277
info@aboriginalpacificart.com.au
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11 - 5

Images:
Wakalpuka 2010. Tommy Mitchell. 762mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas
Walpirnta 2010. Ken Shepherd. 1016mm x 2134mm: acrylic on canvas
Tjamala 2010. Devon Yates. 1016mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas

Warakurna Artists attend the opening of the new NGA annex

2010-10-15T18:42:00.005+09:30

Graham Nelson, one of Warakurna Artists Directors recently made the long journey to Canberra to attended the opening of the new wing of the National Gallery of Australia.

The new annex is both symbolically and literally designed to tell the story of Australian art from its beginnings, purposefully placing the art of Australia's earliest cultures, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, as its focal point. The National Gallery of Australia has the largest collection of Australian Indigenous art in the world, over 7500 works of art, and now many of these are prominently displayed in eleven new galleries.

Image: Graham Nelson, Sarah Scott,Pamela McGrath and Nigel Lendon at the opening.
Photo courtesy Pamela McGrath and Nigel Lendon.

Desert Mob Marketplace 2010 - Impressions

2010-09-16T14:06:00.030+09:30

Some great photos by Jody Brown from Wilurarra Creative (Warburton Youth Arts) of Warakurna Artists stall at this year's Desert Mob Marketplace.

To check out Jody's work see his website - http://www.jlbphotos.com

Many thanks to Warakurna Artists artists, staff and volunteers. We had a fantastic time at the market.

Images: copyright and courtesy Jody Brown

Desert Mob Exhibition 2010 - Warakurna Artists Showcase

2010-09-15T17:31:00.019+09:30

Warakurna Artists display at Desert Mob Exhibition 2010. Photos by Stephen Williamson, Copyright and Courtesy Araluen Arts Centre.

Wakalpuka 2010 by Tommy Mitchell. 762mm x 1016mm acrylic on canvas.

Wakalpuka 2010 by Tommy Mitchell. 1016mm x 1524mm acrylic on canvas.

Lirrun 2010 by Myra Yurtiwa Cook. 762mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas.

Lirrun 2010 by Myra Yurtiwa Cook. 318mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas.

Kungkarangkalpa 2010 by Tjapartji Bates. 762mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas.

Walu 2010 by Carol Maayatja Golding. 762mm x 1524mm acrylic on canvas.

Tawal 2010 by Tjunka Lewis. 762mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas

Patjarrtja 2010 by Tjunka Lewis. 762mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas.

Walpirnta 2010 by Ken Shepherd. 1016mm x 2134mm

Mantamaru 2010 by Rachel Yukultja Jennings. 762mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas

For Desert Mob Exhibition sales please contact:
Araluen Arts Centre
Stephen Williamson - Visual Arts Collection Officer
Email: Stephen.Williamson@nt.gov.au
Phone: 08 8951 1133

Ngaanyatjarraku Turlku Purtingkatja 2010

2010-09-06T14:49:00.003+09:30

Ngaanyatjarra Media presents:
Ngaanyatjarraku Turlku Purtingkatja 2010
Warakurna Community

LIVE MUSIC
Friday 17th September
Manuel Dhurrkay and Iwantja
Ngaanyatjarra Country and Gospel

Friday 18th September
Turlku
Battle of the Bands

Come and join the fun!

Contact Ngaanyatjarra Media for more information - 08 8956 7307

Desert Mob Marketplace 2010

2010-09-04T14:35:00.008+09:30

Desert Mob Marketplace 2010
Saturday 11 September
10-2pm
Araluen Arts Centre

Desert Mob MarketPlace is a large outdoor market with stalls selling affordable Aboriginal arts and crafts and related products, such as T shirts, bags, books and calendars from Desart member Art Centres. Popular with both locals and tourists, the MarketPlace offers a chance of some excellent bargains to early browsers.

Look out for Warakurna Artist's stall located in the Witchetty's Artspace at the Araluen Cultural Centre.

30 x 30cm paintings by the following artists will be available.
Prices from $85-$300
Carol Maayatja Golding, Cecily Wintiragu Yates, Eunice Yunurupa Porter, Judith Yinyika Chambers, Ken Shepherd, Myra Yurtiwa Cook, Nancy Nyanyarna Jackson, Peter Tjarluri Lewis, Polly Porter, Rachel Yukultja Jennings, Tjapartji Bates, Tjunka Lewis, Tommy Mitchell and Waynatjura Bell.

Examples of canvases for sale at our stall.

Darwin Dayz

2010-08-26T11:49:00.014+09:30

Warakurna Artists travelled north for the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair and associated events such as the Western Desert Mob - New Prints Exhibition held at Nomad Art in Parap and the announcement and opening of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award. We had a great time and also enjoyed going to the Gary Lang contemporary dance production Goose Lagoon, visiting Basil Hall Editions, attending the Tjungu Palya group show exhibition opening at Outstation and many other Darwin Festival events. We had such a great time we are going to go troppo again next year!

Tjarlirli Arts artists Nerida Giles and Katjarra Butler and Warakurna Artists Dorcas Bennett, Judith Chambers and Eunice Porter at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair

Simon Dorman from On the Wall Hanging Services installing Warakurna Artists display under the guidance of Mrs Porter

Judith and Eunice overseeing the bush medicine display and sales

New Warakurna Artists staff member Eleanor Watson helping the ladies set up the bush medicine stall

Warkurna Artists staff Edwina and Eleanor getting ready

Pippa from Outstation Gallery and Edwina in front of Warakurna Artists display

Nomad Arts Gallery hosted the Western Desert Mob - New Prints Exhibition opening

Mrs Porter and Judith in front of Nomad Arts in Parap, Darwin

Mrs Porter previewing the beautiful Western Desert Mob prints

Warakurna Artists visited Basil Hall Editions. Basil models our groovy apron.

Basil Hall shows Judith the printing process

It's not all hard work. Hanging out on Stoke Hill Wharf for fish and chips. Judith, Edwina (top pic), Eunice, Dorcas and Eleanor (bottom pic)

Trying new food, Mexican in Parap. Judith, Dorcas and Michelle from Tjanpi Weavers

Enjoying the Darwin weather. Judith, Dorcas and Eunice

Images copyright Warakurna Artists - taken by Edwina Circuitt, Eleanor Watson and Dorcas Bennett

Desert Mob Symposium – stories from the artists

2010-08-20T13:48:00.005+09:30

Desert Mob Symposium – stories from the artists
Friday 10th September 2010
9–3pm Araluen Arts Centre Theatre

Desert Mob Symposium – stories from the artists is a day of artists’ talks by Aboriginal artists, artefact makers, sculptors, filmmakers and photographers from Aboriginal Art Centres together with respected Indigenous artists from across Australia.

This year Desert Mob Symposium takes as its theme ‘In Country’ with a vibrant program of stories, images and short films about the place of community, country and culture in the work of Aboriginal artists.

Program includes Racy Oui-Pitt from Erub Erwer Meta Art Centre in the Torres Strait Islands, Waradgerie artist and sculptor Lorraine Connelly-Northey, young and emerging film makers from Ngurra Kuju Walyja Canning Stock Route project, Ngurratjuta Iltja Ntjarra (Many Hands) watercolour artists from Big hART’s
Namatjira project, Tangentyere Artists, young photographers from Warlayirti Artists (Balgo), Mimili Maku Arts and more...

Registrations: Catering is by prior registration only and $20 donation at the door.
www.desart.com.au or fax Desart on 08 8953 4517

Desert Mob Exhibition
Opening Friday 5pm-9pm Araluen Galleries and Theatre

Desert Mob MarketPlace
Saturday 10am-2pm Araluen Arts Centre

Image: Spinifex Womens Collaborative Tjintirtjintir, courtesy Louise Allerton

27th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award

2010-08-18T13:33:00.010+09:30

A big congratulations from Warakurna Artists to Mr Jimmy Donegan and Ninuku Arts for winning this year's 2010 Telstra award with his powerful painting Papa Tjukurpa Pukara. Yuwa palya!

Warakurna Artists also congratulates Carol Maayatja Golding for being selected for this year's award. We have attached her painting here for you to see.

Tjukurla Pirni 2010 by Carol Maayatja Golding. 762mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas

“My father was born at Tjukurla Pirni. I love this place as you can always get water. Many Tjurlpu (birds) used to live there. They'd fly around country collecting kampurarrpa (bush raisins). One day something happened and they finished. Perhaps the water ran out? You might still see them somewhere, but I can't tell you anymore”.

Painting copyright the artist. Text copyright Warakurna Artists.

View the 27th Telstra NATSIAA Online Gallery
Experience the 27th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award online!

All 96 pre-selected art works featured in this year's Telstra Art Award can be viewed through the online gallery. View the art works in greater detail than before and vote for who you think should be the People's Choice Winner.
The gallery is available in two formats, a high bandwidth version for users with a fast internet speed and a low bandwidth version for those on slower download speeds (dial-up).
Website - http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/museums/exhibitions/natsiaa/27/gallery/_flash/

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2010 - Bush Medicine

2010-08-08T13:33:00.009+09:30

Irmangka Irmangka

Bush medicine made by the women of Warakurna

This highly aromatic plant (eremohila aternifolia) is specific to the South-western area of the Central Desert region and is the most used bush medicine by Ngaanyatjarra people.
Traditionally an infusion of the leaves in oil or fat is used as a “rubbing medicine”. It is said to have a very similar analgesic (pain-killing) properties to Tea-Tree oil.

Irmangka Irmangka is a potent medicine and is also reported to encourage deep sleep and pleasant dreams.

This preparation has been combined with bees-wax to maintain the potent qualities that have been infused into a base of pure olive oil.
The rubbing medicine is for aches and pains and used topically. It should not be used on open wounds.

PRICE $25.00

The bush medicine will be available at the Warakurna Artists stall at this year's Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair.
12-14 Aug 2010
FURTHER DETAILS - www.darwinaboriginalartfair.com.au

Proceeds from the sale of the bush medicine will be returned to Warakurna Community’s Women’s Centre .

Images: Eunice Porter, Dorcas Bennett and Judith Chambers collecting Irmangka Irmangka.

New Prints: Western Desert Mob - Darwin Exhibition - Warakurna Artists Selection

2010-08-02T11:32:00.021+09:30

Warakurna Artists has received many enquiries regarding its prints created for the:

New prints: Western Desert Mob Exhibition

The works below are available though Nomad Art, Darwin.
Please contact Rose and Angus Cameron
Phone: +61 8 8981 6382
Email: gallery@nomadart.com.au

Walpirnta 2010 by Ken Shepherd.
495mm x 330mm: etching.
Edition 30

Ken's etching depicts a story from his father's country, Walpirnta, west of Tjukurla. There were important men travelling and camping through country on their way to business. "This is me and my father's tjukurrpa (dreaming)'. I saw Walpirnta from a helicopter, it was the first time and it made me really happy to see the place my father had told me about. This artwork tells a very strong story, I can’t tell you anymore".

PRICE $320.00 inc GST (framing not included unless requested)

Walu, Muruntjarra and Tjukula Pirni 2010 by Carol Maayatja Golding.
325mm x 495mm: etching.
Edition 30

Carol Maayatja Golding was born at Walu rockhole not far from Warakurna.
This etching shows places that Carol Golding travelled around when she was a child. She shows the Muruntjarra Outstation. Beautiful tali country and big kapi (water) and a big salt lake. She has also etched Walu and Tjukula pirni rockholes.

PRICE $320.00 inc GST (framing not included unless requested)

Walu 2010 by Tommy Mitchell.
380mm x 495mm: etching
Edition 30

Tommy Mitchell's print depicts an important story from the area called Walu. There were two men and one little boy camping at the Walu rockhole.

The Uncles used to go out hunting and leave the little boy behind. He was a naughty boy! He used to sneak into the Owl people's camps and steal their meat.

One day the families went to see the uncles. They said "your nephew has been stealing our meat!". The Uncles asked the boy if this was true but he lied and said no, he didn't steal the meat from the Owl people. The Uncles then got wild at the Owl people and a big tornado swept them away. They must have finished?

One day the men went hunting and left the little boy behind again. This time the men returned with an emu. They were cutting up the emu for dinner and the greedy little boy pulled out its heart. The boy was holding the heart and blood spilt onto the rocks. He ran away with the heart and turned into wind. The emu's blood trail stained the rocks and can still be seen there today. Tommy explains, 'this is a really sorry one, a really sorry story'.

PRICE $385.00 inc GST (framing not included unless requested)

Kurlarta 2010 by Peter Tjarluri Lewis.
495mm x 325mm: etching
Edition 30
Signed by Mr Lewis's son Clifford Mitchell

Peter Tjarluri Lewis was born at Ngaturn near Manatamaru (Jameson) south west of Warakurna. He lived in Warakurna with his family for many years. His work is about many kurlarta, a type of barbed spear. Sadly Mr Lewis passed away this year.

PRICE $385.00 inc GST(framing not included unless requested)

Lirrun 2010 by Myra Yurtiwa Cook
420mm x 300mm: silkscreen
Edition 20

Myra Cook was born at a special place called Kartjinguku, a creek situated near Warakurna. This work depicts a story from Myra's mother's country called Lirrun. A young snake man came from the South of Pukarra. The man had been trying to steal a young girl to become his wife. She called all the feather-foot men and they chased him away to Pukarra. The marks in this work show the feather-foot men chasing the serpent snake man through country.

PRICE $275.00 inc GST (framing not included unless requested)

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The New prints: Western Desert Mob Exhibition will showcase a selection of exquisite prints produced during a Basil Hall workshop conducted in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands will be exhibited at Nomad Art Gallery, Darwin in August coinciding with this year's 27th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards.

Western Desert Mob Art Centres included in the exhibition
Kayili Artists, Warakurna Artists, Tjarlirli Art and Papulankutja Artists.

EXHIBITION DATES
12 August - 18 September

Opening on Saturday 14 August at 6.00 pm

FOR FURTHER DETAILS AND SALES ENQUIRIES
Nomad Art Darwin
Contact: Angus & Rose Cameron
Address: 1/3 Vickers St, Parap, (Cnr Vickers St & Parap Place), Darwin, NT
Phone: +61 8 8981 6382
Email: gallery@nomadart.com.au

Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route Exhibition

2010-07-31T17:55:00.009+09:30

This groundbreaking exhibition reveals the triumph of human will and cultural continuity. It tells the story of the Canning Stock Route’s impact on Aboriginal people, and the importance of the Country that surrounds it, through the works of senior and emerging artists and the stories of traditional custodians. It is a story of contact, conflict and survival, of exodus and return, seen through Aboriginal eyes, and interpreted through their voices, art and new media.

National Museum of Australia
Free entry
Temporary Exhibition Gallery
Location: Lawson Crescent, Acton Peninsula, Canberra

Open daily 9 am - 5 pm (closed Christmas Day)
1800 026 132
information@nma.gov.au

For more information: http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/yiwarra_kuju/

Image: Martu kids playing in the sand dunes near Well 33, with the painting Kunkun Photo by: Morika Biljabu, 2008. Courtesy National Museum of Australia

Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route exhibition is a joint initiative between the National Museum of Australia and FORM.

FORM'S website - http://www.form.net.au/aboriginal-development/canning-stock-route-project

Wiltja-Quiltja for Junction 2010

2010-07-30T09:33:00.013+09:30

The Wiltja-Quiltja (art shelter)will be made from hundreds of paintings by Indigenous and Non-Indigenous painters from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands and will be on display at Junction 2010.

Junction 2010 is this year's Regional Arts Australia conference. It will be held in conjunction with Tasmanian Regional Arts in Launceston, Tasmania from 26 - 29 August and celebrates community, culture and the arts. 1000 people from around Australia will gather to 'rethink' and 're-imagine' the future of the arts in Australia.

Wiltja-Quiltja is a Wilurarra Creative (formally Warburton Youth Arts) initiative. They have invited everyone from across the Ngaanyatjarra Lands to contribute a painting or drawing on 50x50cm square canvas with a 50cm margin. The squares will be sewn together to form a giant art tarp which will then cover a large frame.

This week Kate from Ngaanyatjarraku Shire and Silvana from the Wilurarra Creative travelled to Warakurna to help facilitate the creation of more panels for the Wiltja-Quiltja project.

We have attached images for you so you can see some of the great panels created. It was a fun and creative day, enjoyed by all.....even the cheeky dogs who kept sneaking in to the Art Centre. Papa wiya!

Images
1. The work in progress in the studio grounds. Rachel Joy is working with Wilurarra Creative on this project in Warburton. Photo © Wilurarra Creative

2. Everyone joining in the fun of creating panels. Photo Edwina Circuitt. © Warakurna Artists.

3. Selina Shepherd working on her panel. Photo Edwina Circuitt. © Warakurna Artists.

4. Warakurna Artists Chairwoman looking at the works created. Photo Edwina Circuitt. © Warakurna Artists.

5. An example of one of the panels by Judith Chambers. The painting is about the Royal Flying Doctors and shows a sick person being evacuated. You can see the plane being refueled, the community ambulance and all the families and staff helping. Artwork © the artist. Photo Edwina Circuitt. © Warakurna Artists.

For more information about Junction 2010 and Wilurarra Creative please follow the links below

Junction 2010 - http://www.junction2010.com.au
Wilurarra Creative (Warburton) - http://www.wilurarra.com

A special thanks to Ben Fox and all the team at Wilurarra Creative

Melbourne Art Fair 2010

2010-07-14T11:05:00.004+09:30

Melbourne Art Fair, Australia's premier international visual arts event returns to the World Heritage listed Royal Exhibition Building from 4-8 August 2010.

Warakurna Artists will be represented by Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Sydney

Painting: Wakalpuka 2010 by Tjunka Lewis. 762mm x 762mm: acrylic on canvas
Copyright, painting the artist. Photo copyright Warakurna Artists

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2010 - Warakurna Artists - Bush Medicine

2010-07-05T09:40:00.014+09:30

Warakurna Artists will be travelling north again this year for the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair. The Art Centre will be showcasing a selection of beautiful work from its senior and emerging artists.

Also available will be Warakurna Community's famous bush medicine. Come and meet the ladies who make this magic rubbing medicine called 'Irrmangka Irrmangka'. They will be selling jars for $25. Proceeds from the sale of the bush medicine will go back to the Warakurna Community Womens' Centre

Also available will be Warakurna Artists funky t-shirts $30, bags $15 and aprons $25!

DAAF DETAILS
12 AUG 2010 - 14 AUG 2010
Darwin Convention Centre
Free entry

Date and Time – 12-14 August 2010
Thursday August 12
◦10.00am – 12 noon – Special Industry only opening
◦12noon to 1.00pm – Official Opening – by invitation only
◦1.00pm to 5pm – Open to everyone, all welcome
Friday 13 August
•10am – 4pm – Open to everyone all welcome
Saturday 14 August
•10am – 4pm – Open to everyone all welcome

FOR VISITOR INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT THE DAAF WEBSITE
http://www.darwinaboriginalartfair.com.au/cms/

Image:Warakurna Artists Chairwoman, Eunice Yunurupa Porter grinding irrmangka irrmangka to make a special rubbing medicine for aches and pains.

Photo by Jo Foster © Tjanpi Desert Weavers, NPY Women’s Council

New Prints: Western Desert Mob - Darwin Exhibition

2010-07-01T16:32:00.009+09:30

Nomad Art Darwin, Basil Hall Editions and the Western Desert Mob are proud to present

NEW PRINTS - WESTERN DESERT MOB

New prints from Kayili Artists, Warakurna Artists, Tjarlirli Art and Papulankutja Artists.

A selection of exquisite prints produced during a Basil Hall workshop conducted in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands will be exhibited at Nomad Art Gallery, Darwin in August coinciding with this year's 27th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards.

EXHIBITION DATES
12 August - 18 September

Opening on Saturday 14 August at 6.00 pm

Available online - 7 August 2010

FOR FURTHER DETAILS
Nomad Art Darwin
Contact: Angus & Rose Cameron
Address: 1/3 Vickers St, Parap, (Cnr Vickers St & Parap Place), Darwin, NT
Phone: +61 8 8981 6382
Email: gallery@nomadart.com.au

Image: Kurlarta (Spears) 2010 by Peter Tjarluri Lewis. Etching and screen print.

The Western Desert Mob alliance acknowledges and thanks the Australia Council for their generous support.

Western Desert Mob Printmaking Workshops with Basil Hall

2010-06-08T09:15:00.006+09:30

Warakurna Artists recently hosted a Western Desert Mob printmaking workshop conducted by master print maker Basil Hall from Darwin's Basil Hall Editions.

Artists from Kayili Artists, Warakurna Artists, Tjarlirli Art and Papulankutja Artists had a great time learning a range printmaking techniques such as, etching, sugar-lift, screen-printing and woodblock.

A selection of the prints will be exhibited at Nomad Art Gallery in Darwin in August in conjunction with this years 27th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards. A complete exhibition of the project and a box-set of the prints will be launched next year.

For more information please contact
NOMAD ART
Phone/fax: +61 8 8981 6382 | Mobile: (Australia) 0428 308793 |
Vickers Street, Parap, Darwin Northern Territory, Australia 0820

Images
1. Basil Hall
2. Myra Cook's etching plate
3. Screen prints drying in the sun by Kayili Artists
4. Eunice Porter, Rachel Jennings, Winifred Richards, Carol Golding and Myra Cook at Wanarn Aged Care etching plates for Basil.
5. Ken Shepherd working on a sugar-lift plate
6. Tommy Mitchell working on his 'Walu' Print'
7. Example of Tommy's 'Walu' plate. This printmaking process involved painting bitumen onto an etching plate then creating an overlay by painting with acrylic paint onto acetate. This will then be made into a screen print screen back in Basil's Darwin studio.

Photos taken by Basil Hall and Edwina Circuitt

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2010

2010-06-07T17:45:00.008+09:30

Western Desert Mob members:

- Tjanpi Desert Weavers
- Tjarlirli Art
- Kayili Artists
- Warakurna Artists

are travelling north to Darwin to participate again in this year’s prestigious Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair. The Art Fair coincides with the 27th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.

The Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair will provide a fantastic and diverse artistic experience for lovers of Indigenous art and culture. Representing over 30 community arts centres from across Australia, including the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Arnhem Land, the Kimberley Region, Central Australia and the Torres Strait Islands.

The Art Fair is a unique opportunity to purchase art directly form the Indigenous owned and managed Art Centres, to see the work of emerging as well as established artists, to meet the artists and to learn about the many different art cultural groups working in remote Australia.

The Western Desert Mob is a powerful coalition of Aboriginal art centres, painters, woodcarvers and weavers from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia. The artists and their centres are united to ensure the wealth of talent and economic returns are retained in the community. The communities and art centres represented in the Western Desert Mob include renowned and well-established artists from Warakurna, Papulankutja, Kayili, Maruku, Tjarlirli and Tjanpi Weavers.

DETAILS
12 AUG 2010 - 14 AUG 2010
Darwin Convention Centre
Free entry

Date and Time – 12-14 August 2010
Opening Times
Thursday August 12
◦10.00am – 12 noon – Special Industry only opening
◦12noon to 1.00pm – Official Opening – by invitation only
◦1.00pm to 5pm – Open to everyone, all welcome
Friday 13 August
•10am – 4pm – Open to everyone all welcome
Saturday 14 August
•10am – 4pm – Open to everyone all welcome
FOR VISITOR INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT THE DAAF WEBSITE
http://www.darwinaboriginalartfair.com.au/cms/

Western Desert Mob Emerging Artists Exhibition - Darwin

2010-05-30T15:31:00.021+09:30

Outstation - art from art centres and the Western Desert Mob are proud to present:

Tjukurpa Kutjulpitulpingkatja Artistspa Kuwarringkatja - Stories from the past, artists from today

New works from emerging artists in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.

Participating Art Centres
Warakurna Artists, Warakurna
Papulankutja Artists, Papulankutja
Kayili Aritsts, Patjarr
Tjanpi Desert Weavers, NPY Lands
Maruku Arts, Mutitjulu
Tjarlirli Art, Tjukurla

Opening Friday June 11th at 6pm

Showing June 11th – July 9th

8 Parap Place (Upstairs, Enter via Gregory St)
Parap, NT 0820

P: 08 8981 4822 F: 08 8981 4877
E: info@outstation.com.au
W: www.outstation.com.au

Images - Top to bottom

1. Tjutjuranyara (Circus Waters)2007. Photo Tim Pearn/Copyright Warakurna Artists

2. Kungkarangkalpa 2010 by Eunice Yunurupa Porter. 1016mm x 1524mm. acrylic on canvas. Artwork copyright the artist. Photo Edwina Circuitt/Copyright Warakurna Artists

3. Mungurina 2010 by Nancy Nyanyarna Jackson. 762mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas. Artwork copyright the artist. Photo Edwina Circuitt/Copyright Warakurna Artists

Desert Mob 2010

2010-05-04T11:25:00.004+09:30

Desert Mob is the premier Indigenous art event for this region showcasing work from artists across the Desart membership. This year Desert Mob marks its 20th birthday with a special Friday night exhibition opening and celebrations.

Desert Mob includes the Symposium, the MarketPlace and the prestigious Desert Mob exhibition representing new works from Art Centres throughout Central Australia. Desert Mob is presented by the Araluen Arts Centre in partnership with Desart.

SCHEDULE
Friday 10 September
Desert Mob Symposium
9-3pm, Araluen Theatre

- Desert Mob symposium presents Aboriginal artists talking about their art and lives. The Symposium is a chance to travel back with the artists to the country where their work is produced. You will hear through their own words and see through their own films and images the artists’ perspectives on art and art making in community, country and culture.

To register for the event - http://www.desart.com.au/DesertMob2010SymposiumRegistration/tabid/72/Default.aspx

Friday 10 September
Desert Mob Exhibition opening
Araluen Arts Centre, Exhibition sales start 5pm

- The Desert Mob exhibition showcases the latest works from each of the participating Art Centres and includes paintings by some of the leading artists in Australia, together with traditional artefacts, weavings, ceramics and other crafts. Each Art Centre exhibits works by some of its senior artists, together with works by emerging or younger artists.
Exhibition continues until 24 October 2010.

Desert Mob Exhibition Gala opening event
7pm Witchetty’s Artspace, Araluen Arts Centre

- Join the celebrations in Witchetty's for drinks and nibbles with Guest Speaker, Judith Ryan, Senior Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, the launch of the Desert Mob Box Set of prints - a collaboration between Desart Art Centres and Basil Hall Editions and the IAD Book Preview of Billy Benn Perrurle monograph.

Saturday 11 September
Desert Mob MarketPlace
10-2pm, Araluen Arts Centre Circus Lawns
Desert Mob MarketPlace is a large outdoor market with stalls selling affordable Aboriginal arts and crafts and related products, such as T shirts, bags, books and calendars from Desart member Art Centres. Popular with both locals and tourists, the MarketPlace offers a chance of some excellent bargains to early browsers.

Tjitji Canvaspa - Kids Paintings

2010-04-19T16:32:00.006+09:30

Kids Painting by Shantara Gibson 2010 25x25 acrylic on box canvas.

During the Easter holidays the kids had fun at Warakurna Artists doing some painting workshops. Warakurna Artists has a tradition of collaborative works painted in country. In June the Art Centre is conducting a series of inter-generational painting in country bush trips. The kids were keen to have a go at collaborative painting too, the painting shown here was a practice run!

Kids Paintings 25x25cm acrylic on box canvas

Available online for a limited time - www.warakurnaartists.com.au

Kids working on one of their collaborative paintings photo by Madeleine McCristal

Ngurra - Ngaanyatjarra Communities Website

2010-04-08T18:03:00.003+09:30

Check out this new website from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands. Developed by Ngaanyatjarra Media the website content comes directly from the communities.

http://www.ngurra.org/

Palya!

Wati Power!

2010-04-08T15:05:00.008+09:30

A new generation of powerful younger Wati artists are emerging from Warakurna Artists they include -

Ken Shepherd
Devon Yates
Patrick Reid
Tyronne Newberry
Ian Newberry
Clifford Mitchell
Russell Shepherd

We have attached a few examples here on this post.

Some of these artists will be included in an emerging artists'exhibition at Outstation, Darwin in June. We will keep you posted.

Please visit our website to see works available for sale - www.warakurnaartists.com.au

Wati Tjukurrpa 2010 by Tyronne Newberry. 508 x 1016mm: acrylic on canvas

Nganturn Tingari 2009 by Clifford Mitchell. 1016mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas

Lapaku Tjukurrpa 2009 by Russell Shepherd. 762mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas

Walpirnta 2010 by Ken Shepherd. 1016mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas

Tjamala 2009 by Devon Yates. 1016mm x 1016mm: acrylic on canvas

Warakurna Artists Group Exhibition @ Short Street Gallery Broome

2010-03-31T14:14:00.009+09:30

Mantamaru 2010 by Rachel Yukultja Jennings. 762mm x 1524mm: Acrylic on canvas.

Short Street Gallery in association with Warakurna Artists, WA proudly invites you to view new paintings by Warakurna Artists, including: Tommy Mitchell, Tjapartji Bates, Ken Shepherd, Peter Tjarluri Lewis, Carol Maayatja Golding, Tjunka Lewis, Ernest Bennett, Myra Yurtiwa Cook & Rachel Yukultja Jennings

Exhibition Dates
8 April - 8 May 2010

Short Street Gallery
7 Short Street
Chinatown, Broome WA 6725
ph/f: +61 (8) 9192 2658
E: enquiries@shortstgallery.com
w: www.shortstgallery.com

Opening hours
10am-5pm Week days
10am-2pm Weekends and public holidays

Available online 5th April - www.shortstgallery.com.au

Kurlarta 2010 by Peter Tjarluri Lewis. 508mm x 1524mm: Acrylic on canvas

New Warakurna Artists T-Shirts

2010-03-31T11:38:00.005+09:30

Warakurna Artists T-Shirts, Bags and Aprons designed by Peter Tjarluri Lewis

T-Shirts 100% Cotton
All $30

Colours Black & Orange
MEN
S, M, L, XL, XXL,
WOMEN
10, 12, 14, XL, XXL
NB: XXXL Available in Black only
KIDS
4,6,8

ALSO AVAILABLE

BAGS
Black only/One size
$15

APRONS
Black only/One size
$20

Blackstone Festival 2010 Update

2010-03-18T18:23:00.005+09:30

Hello Everyone,

Due to health reasons Jimmy Little will not be able to attend the Backstone Festival in May. However we have invited him to visit at a later date (possibly September) if health permits.

We will still go as planned with a festival which promises to be a fun filled affair.

EVENTS
-Tjanpi Desert Weaving Workshops
-Blue light Disco
-Football Carnival
-Youth Events
-Community BBQ
-Movie night
-Local Band Concert
-Beauty/hair salon
-Fashion parade
-Glass blowing workshops

Please contact us if you have any further ideas for events.

Thanking everyone for their patience!

Anthony Spry

Papulankutja Artists
PMB 70, via Alice Springs NT 0872

PH 08 8956 7586
Fax 08 8954 9074

www.papulankutja.com.au
email artists.papulankutja@bigpond.com

Warakurna Artist’s Gallery Re-design and Renovations, 2010

2010-03-11T16:29:00.007+09:30

Work has begun on an exciting new design for Warakurna Artist’s Gallery, located at Warakurna Roadhouse on the Great Central Road.

Lots of people at Warakurna are working together with designers. Ideas have been generated and collected to make sure that the new design really gives visitors to the gallery a chance to understand the uniqueness of Warakurna Community, and explain the importance of place for Yarnangu in daily life, as expressed by the paintings and other works of Warakurna Artists.

Design workshops

A participatory design process is unfolding as ideas are gathered together and everybody learns how to communicate their design ideas using drawing, models and talking about the space. Working drawings have been completed and people will have the chance to look and make sure that all of the important elements of the space are included in the final design. And then we build it! The renovations will be underway in the next couple of months, and builders will work closely with people who wish to be involved in the construction of the gallery.

Criselda designing the interior

After the build we will install interpretative information and curate the art work that is for sale. This is anticipated to generate a lot more sales for the community, and also create jobs for people who would like to work in the gallery selling and looking after the art work. The community will be left with a valuable asset for the future as visitors will see the how special Warakurna is, and hopefully leave with a better understanding of desert life in Central Australia.

This project is undertaken by Ngaanyatjarra Council’s Youth Extension Education program in partnership with Warakurna Community Council and Warakurna Artists Inc. The project is being run by Emily Cox. Special thanks to Fiona Donald, volunteer Architect, February 2010.

Top and bottom images of gallery model made by Emily Cox

All photos by Emily Cox, Fiona Donald and Edwina Circuitt

Ethical Dealing in Aboriginal Art, The Truth of the Matter

2010-03-10T08:44:00.006+09:30

This letter from Graeme Marshall was read out last week by Richard England at the opening of Tjukurpa Pulkatjara - The Power of the Law exhibition currently on display at the South Australian Museum as part of the Adelaide Arts Festival.

Richard England is the Director of Healthscope Limited and Committee Deputy Chair of the Indigenous Australian Art Commercial Code of Conduct.

Graeme's words cut to the heart of what 'ethical dealing' in Aboriginal art means. We have received permission from Graeme to share his wisdom and insights on this blog.

The manner in which people go about the business of retailing Indigenous Art is, without doubt, a reflection of their own intellect and a mirror image of their core values.

I have met a lot of people in this industry and from my observations; most of the poor conduct is carried out in ignorance. However, having said that, we must take on board that we are not conducting commercial enterprise on a level playing field and we have a custodianship and responsibility, in fact we have an implied and sacred trust, to make sure that Indigenous Australians are treated with the respect and, dare I say, reverence that they deserve. They are not demanding and they are very accepting and incredibly trusting. Given that, if you extrapolate that to a commercial environment, we have an obligation, indeed a duty, to make sure that as best we can, we put ourselves in their shoes and treat them and the whole commercial undertaking as we would wish to be treated ourselves, under the circumstances. After all, those of us in the business of selling and collecting are merely baton holders in this incredible lineage of songlines and we are temporary custodians in transferring those stories and keeping the stories alive, but most importantly, making sure that we view it as a sacred trust, after all 40,000-60,000 years of lineage is one hell of a responsibility and if we start to view the art as a commodity, then I’m sorry, we start to see the people as a commodity too and they deserve far, far more than that.

And so, with ethical trading, ask yourselves “have I treated the artists well and have I treated my client as I would wish to be treated myself?” “Has there been full disclosure, have I enquired into the circumstances under which the work of art was created and are those circumstances acceptable and are they fair?” I don’t think that it’s complicated, because there will not be any demands from Anangu people – they are too gracious, far too accepting and too wise to get caught up in the day to day machinations and silly ego trips and funny commercial ‘isms’. They think far more laterally than that and we need to adopt a macro view and question our own values. Is it fair? Does it sit comfortably? And if it doesn’t, it won’t – it will quietly chip away and we need to look at ourselves and put ourselves in the shoes of the other person and be comfortable with our decisions. It is not much more complicated than that, except, when you are a conduit, when you are a temporary custodian of one of the most sophisticated cultures and one of the most significant songlines lineage in the history of mankind, we need to step up to the plate and we need to accept our responsibilities consciously and not see it as just “I’m collecting and this is all about money”. It’s not, it’s about being invited to share in a sacred trust and the minute we lose sight of that we have lost sight of our soul. Indigenous culture is the heart and soul of Australia and we should feel privileged that these people have entrusted us with a small part of that as temporary custodians – not that we are ever likely to fully understand it – but that consuming sense of trust is something that we cannot take for granted. It is something that we must value and it’s a sacred trust, going back 50,000 years and we as a collective are a blink in time.

So is this serious stuff? Yes, it is. It is important to understand the process in which works are being created. If the process is a process of abuse or opportunism, then sorry, the product is stained and it is stained forever. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to their past generations and we owe it to future generations to make sure that as custodians, we treat this wonderful industry, this wonderful art and this wonderful expression as a privilege, as something that is so rare and so precious it has to be treated with conscious respect from top to bottom and we have to be able to stand tall and walk away and believe in our own hearts and minds that what we have done is honoured their trust. We have put ourselves in their shoes and we have treated them and the whole process as we would wish to be treated ourselves.

Text Copyright and Courtesy of Graeme Marshall
Director
Marshall Arts

Tjukurpa Pulkatjara - The Power of the Law is a benchmark selection of works by artists from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara Lands and Ngaanyatjarra Lands. This ground breaking exhibition celebrates the work of artists who live and paint close to the Tjukurpa in their own country, at community based art centres. The exhibition underlines the importance of provenance and ethical acquisition of works.

EXHIBITION DETAILS
04 March to 16 March 2010
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

South Australian Museum
North Terrace , Adelaide, SA
Org: Adelaide Festival
Tel: 08 8216 4444
Email: info@adelaidefestival.com.au
Web: www.adelaidefestival.com.au

Image: Senior artists Hector Burton, Ray Ken and Jimmy Donnegan with Graeme Marshall in Adelaide for the Tjukurpa Pulkatjara Exhibition opening 2010. Courtesy of Marshall Arts.

Kuru Alala: Eyes Open

2010-02-15T09:42:00.005+09:30

Kuru Alala: Eyes Open
From: Sunday 7 March – Sunday 11 April 2010

Opening Event 11am Sunday 7 March 2010
Floor Talk 11.30am Wednesday 10 March 2010

Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland
Cnr Middle and Bloomfield Streets,
Cleveland Q 4163

Gallery Hours
Monday to Friday
9am - 4pm
Sunday
9am - 2pm
Enquiries 07 3829 8899

This exhibition brings together the work of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists produced during a series of artists’ camps and workshops held in the Central Western Desert region. Artists Maria Fernanda Cardoso and Alison Clouston travelled to the Ngaanyatjarra and Pitjanjatjara Lands respectively to meet with Tjanpi Desert Weavers to share ideas, skills and experience.

Image: Tjanpi Desert Weavers, Station Scene 2009, grass, raffia, wool, string, sheep’s wool, wire and wire mesh. Courtesy of the artists and Tjanpi Desert Weavers.

Warakurna Artists Group Exhibition Broome 2010

2010-02-03T11:35:00.006+09:30

Short Street Gallery in association with Warakurna Artists, WA proudly invites you to view new paintings by Warakurna Artists, including: Tommy Mitchell, Tjapartji Bates, Ken Shepherd, Peter Tjarluri Lewis, Carol Maayatja Golding, Tjunka Lewis, Ernest Bennett, Myra Yurtiwa Cook & Rachel Yukultja Jennings

Exhibition Dates: 8 April - 6 May 2010

Short Street Gallery
7 Short Street
Chinatown, Broome WA 6725
ph/f: +61 (8) 9192 2658
E: enquiries@shortstgallery.com
w: www.shortstgallery.com

About Short Street Gallery
Short St. Gallery is the premier and longest running Indigenous art gallery located in the heart of Chinatown in Broome. It is an old building (over 100 years) and is the last remaining house with a wind tunnel. It is an important part of the Aboriginal, Malay & Japanese history in Broome. The building has been operating as a gallery since 1998, and houses a comprehensive collection of indigenous contemporary artworks, presenting artists from all over Australia. We are the only member of the ACGA (Australian Commerical Galleries Association) in Broome.

Paintings

Walpirnta 2009 by Ken Shepherd. 1016mm x 2134mm acrylic on canvas
Wakalpuka 2009 by Tjunka Lewis. 508mm x 1016mm: acrylic on canvas
© Artworks the Artists. Images © Warakurna Artists

Tjarlirli Art New Website

2010-02-03T07:57:00.006+09:30

Tjarlirli Art Centre represents the artists of Tjukurla in the Ngannyatjarra lands of Western Australia. The artwork has strong links with the Papunya Tula movement as families left Kintore and Kiwikurra to return to their homelands in the mid 1980s.

Established in 2006 Tjarlirli Art has been recognized as a source of culturally significant work produced by elders such as Nyarrapyi Giles. Katjarra Butler, Annie Farmer, Adrian and Elsa Young. Nyarrapyi Giles won first prize in the Sir Charles Gairdner Award in 2008 and was a finalist in the Telstra Awards and Joondalup prize in the same year.

Tjarlirli Art has many young artists who are keen to carry on in the same tradition as their parents. Artists such as Adam Butler, James Gibson, Bob Gibson, Sheila Giles and Deborah Young are prolific and accomplished painters.

Represented by leading galleries such as Randell Lane Fine Art (Perth), William Mora Gallery (Melbourne)and Gallery Gondwana(Alice Springs), the artists will continue to produce high quality group and solo exhibitions while supplying popular tourist outlets such as Maruku Art Gallery at the Uluru Cultural Centre.

As the only business venture in Tjukurla, Tjarlirli Art is providing much needed income and employment in this remote town of approximately 70 people. As a member of Desart and Western Desert Mob (www.westerndesertmob.com.au) the art centre has a strong mandate to provide training and skills development for its members and opportunities for indigenous artists to travel and participate in Industry events of all kinds.

Tjarlirli Art's core business is the preservation, maintenance and promotion of the art work of the Ngaanyatjarra people by nurturing the development of traditional and contemporary artistic practice, exploring new mediums and innovative opportunities for creative expression.

Work from Tjarlirli Art is commanding the attention of discerning buyers and has been acquired by a number of major collections in Australia and abroad.

Contact Details
Tjarlirli Art
Ph 08 8956 7777
Email: art@tjarlirliart.com
Postal address
PMB 37, Alice Springs NT 0872
Web: http://tjarlirliart.com

Images & text copyright and courtesy of Tjarlirli Art
Photos taken by Tim Acker

Tjukurpa Pulkatjara - The Power of the Law Exhibition

2010-02-02T13:13:00.017+09:30

The 50th Adelaide Festival includes a benchmark exhibition from the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Lands.

Aboriginal artists from the tri-state region into the far north west of South Australia are at the heart of the contemporary Indigenous art movement.

Participating Art Centres

Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands - South Australia
- Tjungu Palya
- Tjala Arts
- Ninuku Artists
- Ernabella Arts
- Kaltjiti Arts and Crafts
- Mimili Maku
- Iwantja Arts and Crafts

Ngaanyatjarra Lands - Western Australia
- Warakurna Artists
- Kayili Artists
- Tjalirli Arts
- Papulankatja Arts

This exhibition features works of senior artists Jimmy Baker, Maringka Baker, Wingu Tingima, Tommy Mitchell, Tjapartji Bates, Carol Maayatja Golding, Myra Yurtiwa Cook, Harry Tjutjuna, Tiger Palpatja, Ruby Williamson, Dickie Minyintiri and other senior men and women whose work is held in major private and public, national and international collections, as well as new works by emerging artists.

Artists will be present to speak to their work.

Tjukurpa Pulkatjara celebrates the work of artists who live and paint close to the Tjukurpa in their own country, at community based art centres. The exhibition underlines the importance of provenance and ethical acquisition of works.

The South Australian Museum, renowned for its extensive collection of Indigenous cultural artefacts including work from this region, is a fitting venue for this exhibition.

When?
04 March to 16 March 2010
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Where?
South Australian Museum
North Terrace , Adelaide, SA
Org: Adelaide Festival
Tel: 08 8216 4444
Email: info@adelaidefestival.com.au
Web: www.adelaidefestival.com.au

Infomation Contact:
Annabelle Edkins
Ananguku Arts and Culture Aboriginal Corporation
08 8227 2788
admin@anangukuarts.com.au

Painting: Jimmy Baker Ngintaka, Kalaya, Wanampi 2008 acrylic on canvas

Exhibition Catalogue Extract Link -http://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/downloadableitems/Tjukurpa_Pulkatjara_extract.pdf

Jane Raffan reports on Warakurna Artists in Western Australia

2009-12-16T12:24:00.009+09:30

Tommy Mitchell with his dog Malpaka 2009.
Photo by Edwina Circuitt © Warakurna Artists. Artworks © Tommy Mitchell

Jane Raffan reports on Warakurna Artists in Western Australia

It has been nearly 20 years since the remote community of Warakurna in Ngaanyatjarra Lands first came to prominence with Midnight Oil’s lament of the same name.1 On 29 June 2005, the Federal Court recognised that Ngaanyatjarra native title claimants held exclusive possession rights over most of their country, covering almost 188,000 square kilometres in the central desert region of WA, stretching from the Gibson Desert Nature Reserve to the South Australian border. Since this statement of empowerment we have witnessed an intense and dynamic artistic flourish from many art centres across these lands, and it is truly wonderful that Warakurna, which commenced operations in 2005 and is amongst the newest of these centres, now conjures an entirely different spectrum of images in our cultural record.

Warakurna is situated near the Rawlinson Ranges in Western Australia, approximately 330km from Uluru, near the Northern Territory border. The township of around 180 people nurtures an art centre that is fully owned and governed by Aboriginal people and represents artists from the nearby community of Wanarn, as well as its resident painters. A self-professed energetic, happy and creative place 2, the art centre is a spacious, brightly decorated corrugated iron building with a painting area, office and storage room.

Warakurna’s premier artists include Tommy Mitchell, Myra Cook, Tjapartji Bates, Carol Maayatja Golding, Peter Tjarluri Lewis, Tjunka Lewis and Rachel Yukultja Jennings. Most began painting in 2005 with a few exceptions: Tjunka Lewis previously painted for Papulankutja/Blackstone; and senior artist Tjapartji Bates first painted for the Warburton Arts Project in the 1990s.

Tjapartji Bates won the Normandy Heritage Art Prize in the 4th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards of 1998, and was included in the seminal ‘Colour Power’ exhibition from the National Gallery of Victoria in 2004. Peter Tjarluri Lewis featured in the Australian Pavilion’s 2005 World Expo exhibition, ‘Painting Country - a West to East Journey’, Aichi, Japan.

More recently, Warakurna artists featured in the 2007 exhibition ‘Kutju - One, Western Desert Mob Ngaanyatjarra Lands Regional Exhibition’, at Lawrence Wilson Gallery, Perth; and the 2008/2009 Melbourne Museum exhibition ‘Yamatji Pirni: Many Friendships, Sharing Life and Art from the Western Desert’.

Warakurna artists are represented in the collections of Artbank, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Art Gallery of NSW. The centre is supported by the Western Desert Mob alliance, and works are exhibited through select galleries: Randell Lane Gallery Perth; Alcaston Gallery Melbourne; Marshall Arts Adelaide; Aboriginal & Pacific Art & Birrung World Vision Gallery Sydney; Short Street Gallery Broome; and Outstation Gallery Darwin.

Since its inception Warakurna Artists has exhibited at the yearly Alice Springs Desert Mob art fair, which showcases works by Aboriginal run centres from Central Australia. In a review of the 2005 fair the centre was identified as one to watch3; this year they showed ten works by eight artists, selling 80% on opening night. Warakurna Artist’s manager Edwina Circuitt is naturally pleased and has commented that sales have increased yearly, with a marked improvement in 2009.

This year also saw the selection of two Warakurna works for the 26th Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award: a vibrant, energetic canvas by Tommy Mitchell, and a richly detailed first encounter depiction of the Lasseter’s gold exploration story by the Warakurna Artist’s Women’s Collaborative; an example of a first contact story becoming modern Tjukurrpa or dreaming. Mitchell last featured in the 2006 awards, and Carol Maayatja Golding was a finalist in 2007.

Good governance and community support are vital issues for art centres, and a critical message underpinning the campaign for ethical dealing supported by Desart. In 2008 Warakurna Artists won the highly contested Reconciliation Australia and BHP Billiton Indigenous Governance Award.

The prize endowed the centre with $50,000 scholarship for two Executive members/artists to attend an international leadership program in the US; as well as a $10,000 prize towards governance training and professional development for indigenous artists at the centre.

Continuing to enact its mission, Warakurna Artists has recently undertaken bold initiatives to rekindle and nurture traditional skills and engage and empower male artists, which has also forged a new direction in the centre’s art making program.
The centre instigated ‘Wati Wednesdays’, a men’s only painting day to encourage participation of the younger men or wati; and in celebration of its fifth year, Warakurna Artists is facilitating a weaponry craft project that will culminate in the production of a body of new work: the first output being a limited edition of 6 bronze miru or spearthrowers by Ernest Bennett. Aside from their potency and appeal as sculpture, these works are also powerful illustrations of Warakurna’s commitment to Ngaanyatjarra culture.

JANE RAFFAN
September 2009
© Australian Art Collector Magazine

1 Diesel to Dust, Columbia Records, 1990
2http://thrivinginthedesert.blogspot.com/search/label/About%20Warakurna%20Artists%20Aboriginal%20Corporation
3 Nicholas Rothwell, ‘Lines Shimmer into shape’, The Australian, 13 September 2005, p14
_____________________________
Images Copyright the artists, and courtesy of Edwina Circuitt, Warakurna Artists http://www.warakurnaartists.com.au/

For complete article see:

AUSTRALIAN ART COLLECTOR MAGAZINE
Issue 50, October - December 2009

Festive Season Fun from Warakurna Artists

2009-12-12T10:40:00.008+09:30

Warakurna Artists Christmas special!

Available online until 18th of December - see online sales

our website - www.warakurnaartists.com.au

Get your orders in quick...the weekly mail plane leaves on Tuesdays!

Top
Casual staff member Madeleine McCristal with Chairwoman Eunice Porter in front of sign made for Warakurna Artists annual staff sale.

Below
Mady and Ken Shepherd with mail bags filled with Christmas paintings to be sent all over the world.

© Warakurna Artists photo by Edwina Circuitt

Warakurna Artists - Sydney Exhibition 2009

2009-10-23T13:43:00.004+09:30

Aboriginal and Pacific Art in association with Warakurna Artists, WA

Exhibition Dates: 12 – 28 November 2009

2 Danks Street
Waterloo NSW 2017
t +61 2 9699 2211
f +61 2 9699 2277
info@aboriginalpacificart.com.au
www.aboriginalpacificart.com.au

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11 - 5
Image:
Carol Maayatja Golding, Muruntjarra and Walu, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 508 x 1016mm
© Artwork the artist.
© Image and text Warakurna Artists

Indigenous Governance Awards 2010

2009-10-22T16:47:00.004+09:30

'My work on these Awards has changed my view of the world, changed my approach to what I do. What these people are achieving and how they do what they do has come to inform everything I say and everything I stand for in promoting the well being of my people. Success is now my guiding light, as it must be for all Australians who want to see it replicated across the country'.

Professor Mick Dodson, Chair, Indigenous Governance Awards

Applications for the 2010 Indigenous Governance Awards are now open.

The IG Awards are open to all Australian Indigenous organisations (incorporated under legislation) that are at least 51% Indigenous controlled. Organisations need to have been operating for one year, and the application must be submitted by someone working in the organisation and have the approval in writing of the governing body.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit Reconcilitation Australia's website - http://www.reconciliation.org.au/igawards

Copyright - Reconciliation Australia

Desert Mob 2009

2009-09-22T13:43:00.005+09:30

Photos of Warakurna Artist's display at this year's Desert Mob Exhibition, Market and Symposium.

Warakurna Artist's display including works by Tommy Mitchell, Myra Cook, Tjapartji Bates, Carol Golding, Peter Tjarluri Lewis, Tjunka Lewis, Nyurapayia Bennett Nampitjinpa and Rachel Jennings. Tjanpi Desert Weaver's baskets in the foreground.

Artists' preview

Copyright Warakurna Artists. Photos by Airlie Circuitt

2009 DESERT MOB EXHIBITION
Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
DATES
Exhibition continues until 18 October 2009

Warakurna Artist's Desert Mob market stall.
© Warakurna Artists. Photo: Edwina Circuitt

Eunice Porter speaking about her paintings at the Desert Mob Symposium
© Warakurna Artists. Photo: Airlie Circuitt
DETAILS

Warakurna Artists Studio Renovation

2009-09-16T13:05:00.004+09:30

Before and after photos of Warakurna Artists Studio renovation...

Mr Mitchell helping out...

Matt Hablethwaite 'The Expert'

Clearing out the studio in preparation for painting

Chairwoman Eunice Porter gives the new space a tick of approval

The Kids helping to create a photo wall

Freshly painted

Business as usual!

Photos copyright Warakurna Artists

Bronze Miru Sculpture

2009-08-20T08:12:00.008+09:30

To mark Warakurna Artists fifth year of operation it will be facilitating a powerful intergenerational men’s weaponry craft project. This project will have significant artistic outcomes including the creation of a series of major bronze sculptures. A key aim of the men’s project is to support a reinvigoration of traditional wooden weaponry production and to immortalise the pieces in bronze. The project will also help celebrate the vibrancy and power of Ngaanyatjarra culture. Sculptor Brendan Hackett of Blueprint Sculpture Foundry of Melbourne will help to facilitate this important project. Brendan has already collaborated with Ernest Bennett senior painter and Master carver to create a bronze miru (spearthrower).

The Bronze Miru (limited edition of six) is available POA.
Please contact Warakurna Artists 08 8955 8099 to place an order.

ABOUT THE BRONZE MIRU
Ernest Bennett was born near Warbuton and now lives in Warakurna with his family. His country is Karrku not far from Warakurna.

A miru is extracted with economy as a vertical segment from a living mulga tree, its craftsman then working with the grain to reduce the portion to the thin even leaf, its minimal form following the demands each of its multiple functions.

The Miru is the essence of western desert minimalism. As the extension of a man's arm it will amplify the power and distance that a spear can be hurled. Its leaf-shaped-core doubles as a container for mixing pituri and can carry ochre. Its burnished edge, when rubbed on a softer wood makes fire. Tipped with a freshly napped blade, the same implement is used as a perfectly balanced adze to butcher fresh-cooked kangaroo or to hone an identical weapon, created on its own perfect template.

Ernest Bennett's Miru has been cast and is poised, as if on the suspension of a rolled-over-motorcar, a vehicles leaf-spring-suspension adapted for a new use. All is kinetic energy - waiting for the target to come within the range of this lethal propellent.

Text courtesy of John Kean, Museum Victoria 2008
Photograph: Alexander Lyne

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2009 Photos

2009-08-19T14:22:00.004+09:30

Some photos from this year's Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair...
Setting up, crowds and display....
© photographs Warakurna Artists

26th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award News

2009-08-19T11:12:00.009+09:30

Warakurna Artists extends a big congratulations to this year's winners of the award

Major Prize Winner - Danie Mellor
Telstra General Painting Award - Yinarupa Nangala
Telstra Bark Painting Award - Rerrkirrwanga Munungurr
Telstra Works on Paper - Glen Namundja
Wandjuk Marika Three-Dimensional Memorial Award, sponsored by Telstra - Janine McAullay Bott

Warakurna Artists had two works selected for this year's 26th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA).

Walu Tjukurrpa 2009 1524mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas by Tommy Mitchell

This painting depicts a story from Tommy's country called Walu. There were uncles and their little nephew camping at the Walu rockhole. The men used to go hunting and the little boy stayed behind. When the uncles were out of sight the little boy would go and steal meat from other people's camps. One day, families came to the uncles to complain about their nephew stealing their food. The little boy said to the uncles he didn't steal and the uncles believed him. The uncles then got mad at the families and then something happened.

Lasseter History Story by Warakurna Artists 2009. 1524mm x 2134mm: acrylic on canvas by Eunice Yunurupa Porter, Waynatjura Bell, Nancy Nyanyarna Jackson, Melissa Mitchell-Stevens, Judith Yinyika Chambers and Polly Pyuwawyia Jackson.

This painting by Eunice Yunurupa Porter, Waynatjura Bell, Nancy Nyanyarna Jackson, Melissa Mitchell-Stevens, Judith Yinyika Chambers and Polly Pyuwawyia Jackson depicts a story about the white explorer Harold Bell Lasseter. Legend is that Lasseter discovered gold the other side of Warakurna famously known as 'Lasseter's Reef' however it has never been found.

Lasseter walked from Alice Springs and travelled through the other side of Warakurna. He was travelling alone. People had spears and they were waving them at Lasseter, they were frightened, they had never seen a white man or camels. Some of the men followed him, they were following his tracks. They saw his camp and hid from him.

Sales (Warakurna Artists entries only): please contact Edwina Circuitt - art@warakurnaartists.com.au

Exhibition dates: Friday 14 August - Sunday 25 October 2009
Opening: 6pm Friday 14 August 2009
Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory
Conacher Street, Fannie Bay, Darwin

Contact
Award Coordinator
Phone: (08) 8999 8203 or (08) 8999 8264
Facsimile: 08 8999 8148
Email: natsiaa@nt.gov.au

Tjitji Painting Program - School Holidays

2009-06-24T19:06:00.007+09:30

During the mid year school holidays Warakurna Artists has been conducting a children's painting program. As you can see there are many budding artists and lots of smilling faces.

Some examples of Tjitji paintings from Warakurna Artist's Kids Painting Program can be seen on our website and are available online for $35 each until the 31st July 09.

60% of the money recieved from the sale of the paintings goes to the children who get a cheque once a year at Christmas time so they can buy themselves and their families presents. 40% goes back to Warakurna Artists to pay for materials to continue the program.

www.warakurnaartists.com.au

Western Desert Mob Art Centres go Troppo - Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair August 2009

2009-06-22T10:43:00.010+09:30

It's a long drive from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands to Darwin!

No dogs will be allowed on the trip to Darwin but they might like to tell you otherwise.

Wanarmbi 2009 by Tjunka Lewis.762mm x 762mm: acrylic on canvas

Western Desert Mob members Tjanpi Desert Weavers, Tjarlirli Art and Warakurna Artists are travelling north to Darwin to participate in this year’s prestigious Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair. The Art Fair coincides with the 26th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.

The Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair will provide a fantastic and diverse artistic experience for lovers of Indigenous art and culture. Representing over 30 community arts centres from across Australia, including the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Arnhem Land, the Kimberley Region, Central Australia, the Torres Strait Islands and Victoria.

The Art Fair is a unique opportunity to purchase art directly form the Indigenous owned and managed Art Centres, to see the work of emerging as well as established artists, to meet the artists and to learn about the many different art cultural groups working in remote Australia.

The Western Desert Mob is a powerful coalition of Aboriginal art centres, painters, woodcarvers and weavers from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia. The artists and their centres are united to ensure the wealth of talent and economic returns are retained in the community. The communities and art centres represented in the Western Desert Mob include renowned and well-established artists from Warakurna, Papulankutja, Kayili, Maruku, Tjarlirli and Tjanpi Weavers.

DETAILS
13 AUG 2009 - 15 AUG 2009

Free entry

VENUE
Harry Chan Building
Darwin City
Darwin
Northern Territory 0800
Australia

CONTACT US
Top End Arts Marketing
t: 08 8924 4514

Examples of paintings from Warakurna Artists which will be on display at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair

Lirrun 2009 by Myra Cook. 508mm x 762mm acrylic on canvas.

Wakalpuka 2009 by Tommy Mitchell. 762mm x 1524mm: acrylic on canvas

Kungkarangkalpa 2009 by Tjapartji Bates. 762mm x 762mm: acrylic on canvas

© Photographs Warakurna Artists
© Artworks the Artist

Wati Wednesdays

2009-06-10T17:32:00.004+09:30

Rocky Porter, Tommy Mitchell, Ken Shepherd, Dwayne Shepherd and Dixon Lane paint up a storm.

The Warakurna Artists Executive decided that the Art Centre needs a 'men only' day to encourage the younger wati to come and paint. The initiative has been a great success!

© Warakurna Artists/Photos Edwina Circuitt

Desert Mob 2009

2009-06-09T13:27:00.004+09:30

Desert Mob is the premier Indigenous art event showcasing work from Central Australian Aboriginal owned and governed Art Centres. This special annual event, with an increasing number of national and international collectors and researchers returning each year for the show, to view the exhibition and to purchase.

The Araluen Arts Centre, in association with Desart also presents the Desert Mob Symposium and Desert Mob MarketPlace, while Desart and ArtBackNT work in partnership to present the Desert Mob DanceSite event, at the Alice Springs Telegraph Station, as part of the overall Desert Mob experience.

Desert Mob 2009 Exhibition and Associated Events
Friday 4th to Sunday 6th September, 2009

Venue
The Araluen Arts Centre

Symposium
Friday 4th September - 9.00am to 3.00pm
Come and hear Artists speak about their work.

Marketplace
Saturday 5th September - 11.00am to 3.00pm
Get there early. Desert Mob Marketplace is a prelude to the annual Desert Mob exhibition, which is held in Alice Springs in September every year.

Desert Mob Exhibition Opening
Sunday 6th September - 2.00pm

Exhibition Dates
Monday 7th September to Sunday 18th October

Participating Art Centres:
Alpurrurulam Arts
Amoonguna Art & Cultural Centre
Arplwe Art & Culture
Artists of Ampilatwatja
Ernabella Arts
Greenbush Art Group
Hermannsburg Potters
Ikuntji Art Centre
Imanpa Arts
Irrkerlantye Arts
Iwantja Arts & Crafts
Julalikari Arts
Kaltjiti Arts and Crafts
Kayili Artists (Patjarr)
Keringke Arts
Maruku Arts
Mimili Maku Arts
Mwerre Anthurre Artists (Bindi Inc)
Ngurratjuta Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre
Ninuku Artists
Ntaria Arts Centre
Nyinkka Nyunyu Cultural Centre
Papulankutja Artists
Papunya Tjupi
Papunya Tula Artists
Red Shed (Atitjere)
Spinifex Arts Project
Tangentyere Artists
Titjikala Art Centre
Tjala Arts (Amata)
Tjanpi Desert Weavers
Tjarlirli Art (Tjukurla)
Tjungu Palya
Walkatjara Art Uluru
Warakurna Artists
Waralungku Arts
Warlayirti Artists
Warlukurlangu Artists
Watiyawanu Artists
Yarrenyty-Arltere (Larapinta Valley)
Yaruman Art & Culture Centre

Warakurna Artists Travelling North - Darwin Exhibition

2009-06-09T12:45:00.017+09:30

Outstation Gallery, Darwin in conjunction with Warakurna Artists, Western Australia proudly invites you to view new paintings by Warakurna Artists, including: Tommy Mitchell, Tjapartji Bates, Eunice Yunurupa Porter, Ken Shepherd, Peter Tjarluri Lewis, Carol Maayatja Golding, Tjunka Lewis & Rachel Jennings.

Printingpa Ngaanya Yanku Kayili

Wati Tjukurrpa 2009 by Tjunka Lewis. 508mm x 762mm: Acrylic on canvas

DETAILS
Exhibition Opening on 12 June at 6pm
Dates Friday 12 June - Wed 08 July 2009
Gallery Hours Tues-Fri 9:30-5, Sat 9-3

Paintings can be viewed online 12 June - www.outstation.com.au

Patjarrtja 2009 by Tommy Mitchell. 508mm x 1016mm Acrylic on canvas

About Warakurna
Warakurna is a small community situated near the Rawlinson Ranges in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands of Western Australia, approximately 330km from Uluru near the border with the Northern Territory. The paintings from Warakurna Arts are vibrant and diverse, reflecting each artist’s unique style, stories and connection to country.

Tjukurla Pirni 2009 by Carol Golding. 762mm x 762mm: acrylic on canvas

Western Desert Mob
Outstation Gallery was recently invited to become a Western Desert Mob Gallery Partner. Western Desert Mob is a As a defiant and bold step toward maintaining strong, sustainable, Aboriginal owned enterprises, an alliance of Indigenous artists and art centres from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia have formed the Western Desert Mob.

The Western Desert Mob is a powerful coalition of Aboriginal art centres, painters, woodcarvers and weavers from the region - united to ensure the wealth of talent and economic returns are retained in the community. The communities and art centres represented in the Western Desert Mob include renowned and well-established artists from Warakurna, Papulankutja, Kayili, Maruku, Tjarlirli and Tjanpi Weavers.

For further information please contact:

Matt Ward
Outstation - art from art centres
2 Parap Pl
Parap NT 0820
p: 08 8981 4822
f: 08 8981 4877
www.outstation.com.au

© Title photo copyright Warakurna Artists – Photo by Edith Clark
© Artworks belong to the Artists
© Installation photographs by Matt Ward - Outstation Gallery

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2009

2009-06-01T14:57:00.009+09:30

13 AUG 2009 - 15 AUG 2009

Free entry

The Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair will provide a unique artistic experience for all lovers of indigenous art and culture. Representing over 30 community arts centres from across Australia, including Arnhem Land, the Kimberley Region, Central Australia, the Torres Strait Islands and Victoria. The diversity of Indigenous art at the fair is remarkable.

The Art Fair is a unique opportunity to purchase art directly form the Indigenous owned and incorporated art centres, to see the work of emerging as well as established artists, to meet the artists and to find out about the variety of different cultural groups producing art.

VENUE
Harry Chan Building
Darwin City
Darwin
Northern Territory 0800
Australia

PARTICIPATING ART CENTRES
Arlpwe Art and Culture Centre
Babbarra Womens Centre
Bula Bula
Corporation
Djilpin Arts
Durrmu Arts
East Gippsland Aboriginal Arts Corporation
Elcho Island Art and Craft
Erub Erwer Meta (Darnely Art Centre)
Gab Titui Cultural Centre
Hermannsburg Potters Aboriginal
Injalak Arts and Crafts
Iwantja Arts and Crafts
Larrakia Art and Craft
Mangkaja Arts
Maningrida Arts and Culture
Mardbalk Art and Craft Centre
Mc Culloch and McCulloch Art and Books
Merrepen Arts
Mimi Arts and Crafts
Mimili Art Centre
Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre
Mungart Boodja Art Centre
Papunya Tula Artists
Tangentyere Artists
Tiwi Design Aboriginal Corporation
Tjanpi Desert Weavers
Tjarlirli Art
Warakurna Artists
Waralungku Arts
Waringarri Aborginal Arts
Warlayirti Artists
Warlukurlangu Artists
Warmun Art centre

CONTACT US
Top End Arts Marketing
t: 08 8924 4514

"Cawlay" Comes to Town

2009-05-24T11:12:00.014+09:30

Image: Robert Macaulay and his yellow Land Rover circa 1957. Photographer unknown, courtesy of the Macaulay Collection.

In April Warakurna Artists hosted a visit from Mr Robert Macaulay, or “Cawlay” as he is remembered by people here. From its early days, Macaulay was the Native Patrol Officer based at Giles Weather Station located just five kilometres up the road from the present day community of Warakurna. From early September 1956 to September 1958 Macaulay was responsible for managing the relationship between the local Aboriginal population, who were living independent lives on their traditional country, and the employees of the weather station, the first permanent colonial occupation for hundreds of kilometres in any direction.

Macaulay’s visit is part of an ongoing research project into the cultural and historical values of “early days” films and photographs being carried out by Pamela McGrath of the Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University. Supported by Warakurna Artists and Ngaanyatjarra Council, Pam has been visiting the Lands on and off since 2007, working closely with people from the area to “re-document” historical films and photographs of their families and their country. The extensive photographic collection of Macaulay, taken during his time working at Giles, comprises over 400 images and is one of the more significant private collections being made available to people through Pam’s research.

From his short visit to the community in 2007, Macaulay has been keen to have copies of his films and photographs from 1956 onwards available on site to members of the Warakurna community. With the help of a research grant from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Pam was able to organise for Macaulay to return to the area where he worked over fifty years ago and assist with identifying and re-inscribing the stories of these photographs. Over a weekend in April, Macaulay and his two daughters spent time talking to many people, both young and old, who either remember him personally or have heard about him from their parents. Together we visited Wanarn Aged Care to meet with the residents there, some of whom were young adults during Macaulay’s time and are featured in his photographs. We also held a screening of a documentary film about the making of the weather station, Balloons and Spinifex (1958), which features footage of families living in the area and of Macaulay himself, who was at the time a young man of 23.

The photos and film sparked many memories and stories about that time, some of which were recorded by Ngaanyatjarra Media for Yarnangu audiences. As one woman said, “It was like opening a door to the past, all those stories come tumbling out.” Among these memories was a song that the women and children used to sing when they saw Macaulay and his colleague Walter MacDougall coming from Ernabella mission in their yellow International truck.

Overall the weekend was a great success. Many people had not previously seen photographs of their families and were grateful to finally be able to have what so many other Australians take for granted: a family portrait. Pam will continue to work on re-documenting Macaulay’s collection until she returns to Canberra in early June to begin writing up her research. An important part of her project involves the repatriation of the films and photographs and she will work with Macaulay and Ngaanyatjarra Council to come up with an appropriate strategy to ensure families continue to have access to this valuable collection.

Image: Bob Macaulay, Pamela McGrath and Warakurna Artists senior artist Tommy Mitchell holding a photograph of his family taken in 1957 by Macaulay. Photo copyright Warakurna Artists by Edwina Circuitt

Essay text copyright Pamela McGrath

Warakurna Artists & Kayili Artists Working Together

2009-05-24T09:19:00.007+09:30

Image: Warakurna Artists senior artist Carol Golding and staff member Natalie Wells

Warakurna Artists and Kayili Artists are working together to service more artists in Wanarn Community. Key artists from both the Art Centres are located in Wanarn Aged Care and Community. We thank and acknowledge the generous support given by the Aged Care staff and Wanarn Community to make the workshops such a success.

Image: New Kayili Artists manager and visual artist Kerry Martin with senior artist Coiley Campbell.

Image: Wanarn Aged Care staff Linda and Leny (Manager).

Image: Warakurna Artists senior artist Rachel Jennings

Image: Completed works heading back to Warakurna

All images copyright Warakurna Artists, photos by Edwina Circuitt