ALPEYT MWERRANGKER: GOOD BLOSSOMS | 20 OCTOBER - 10 NOVEMBER 2022

GROUP EXHIBITION

ALPEYT MWERRANGKER | GOOD BLOSSOMS

OCTOBER - 10 NOVEMBER 2022

EXHIBITION OPENING

Saturday 22 October 2022, 2 - 4 pm

COOEE ART REDFERN

17 Thurlow Street

Redfern NSW 2016 ARTISTS

ADA PULA BEASLEY

ANNETTE NUNGALA PETERSON

FIONA PWERL CORBETT

JESSIE KEMARR BEASLEY

JULIE PWERL BEASLEY

LINDY NUNGARRAYI BRODIE

LORNA PWERL CORBETT

PAMMY KEMARR FOSTER

RITA KEMARR BEASLEY

SUSIE NGWARREY PETERSON

VICKY NAPURRULA POPE

DARWIN

TENNANT CREEK ALICE SPRINGS NORTHERN TERRITORY

AUSTRALIA QUEENSLAND

“The bloodwood trees grow around Epenarra. They grow flowers. The dots are flowers. There are lots on Frew.” - RITA KEMARR BEASLEY

Alpeyt Mwerrangker | Good Blossoms

The Barkly Tableland stretches over 320,000 square km of the Northern Territory, surrounding its largest town and cultural centre, Tennant Creek, located approximately 1000km south of Darwin and 500km north of Alice Springs. Here, Barkly Regional Arts is the area’s main hub for visual artists and musicians, each inspired by the Country under the canopy of vivid blue sky and red dust.

From their visual arts and music studios in the heart of Tennant Creek, Barkly Regional Arts does outreach with the area’s remote communities, producing art and music that tells the stories of the Barkly, fostering access, development, and recognition of arts in the Barkly.

Art made in the Barkly region is significant not just as a way of preserving culture, but also as a means by which

the community can come together, celebrating culture and Country and, not least, earning an income. The work of the Artists of the Barkly reflects the remote, unforgiving desert landscape and harsh conditions, yet also portrays the charm and magical beauty of the region.

The Artists of the Barkly collective represents over fifty artists, living in four remote communities across the Barkly region: Tennant Creek, Wutunugurra (Epenarra), Owairtilla (Canteen Creek) and Kulumindini (Elliott). Alpeyt Mwerrangker meaning Good Flowers or Good Blossoms in Alyawarr, features eleven of the regions most well renowned painters, sharing a remote, rugged landscape and an interest in Country, modern history and life in the Barkly. The artists from each community exhibit a distinctive style, demonstrating the profound influence of the art centre setting.

- JULIE PWERL BEASLEY

“The land is special to us and our children. We keep the knowledge of our land to pass to the children.”

“I do painting to look back on the old days when we went hunting. My Mum took us out looking for bush medicine and yams and goanna. I learned about painting by looking at the flowers and trees in the swap area around Ampilatwatja where the bush flowers bloom in lots of colours. It’s good for my kids to look at my paintings and learn about our ways.”

- ADA PULA BEASLEY

Rita Kemarr Beasley

Rita Kemarr Beasley

Wutunugurra Landscape

synthetic polymer

BLOSSOMS

COOEE

Rita Kemarr Beasley

Rita

Artist Biographies

Supplied by Barkly Regional Art

ADA PULA BEASLEY (b. 1959 - )

“I do painting to look back on the old days when we went hunting. My Mum took us out looking for bush medicine and yams and goanna. I learned about painting by looking at the flowers and trees in the swap area around Ampilatwatja where the bush flowers bloom in lots of colours. It’s good for my kids to look at my paintings and learn about our ways.”

Ada Pula Beasley is an Epenarra artist known for her vibrant depictions of Alyawarr Country. Ada’s work is notable for her use of a dabbing technique, employed to create many brief, hazy strokes, sometimes layered with heavy dots, that coalesce to form trees, shrubs and flowers. Ada’s pallet is influenced by flowers local to Alyawarr Country which sits at the foothills of Ilytwelepenty (the Davenport Ranges). Notable for her bold use of colour, in particular greens and yellows, Ada’s paintings often capture the desert in the springtime, when rain comes, casting the local flora vivid green and blanketing the red dirt in abundant wildflowers.

Ada’s landscapes sit at a crossroads between representational and abstract. Her rhythmic mark making refers to light and colour, a response to environmental changes observed over the course of the day or the year. Ada’s focus on light and colour over form recall an Impressionistic style while her use of repetitive layers of heavy dabbing draws influence from the greats of the nearby Utopia homelands.

Ada began her career with the Artists of Ampilatwatja before she moved to the nearby community of Epenarra, also known as Wutunugurra, here she continues to paint with the Epenarra Artists and remains an important artist in the Barkly region.

“I paint out in the country where it’s busy. Mail plane, flying doctors, army, mining mob, you might see anyone. This is the outback.”

Annette Nungala Peterson combines naive imagery with heavy dotwork often arranged in patchwork pattern to depict the vast landscape of Ilytwelepenty (the Davenport Ranges). Abundant bush flowers and the ubiquitous white eucalypts of the region scatter Annette’s landscape. Planes, helicopters, trucks and cars can often be found weaving their way across her canvases.

Keenly aware of the comings and goings of station workers, maintenance crews and health professionals, Annette’s work is influenced by daily life in community and contain an element of fantasy; heavy dotting and vivid patchwork colours exaggerate the texture of the pebbled ‘rock country’ that surrounds Wutunugurra while a distorted perspective renders bush flowers the size of trees making for dream-like landscapes.

Annette was born at Neutral Junction Station in 1968, close to Barrow Creek on the Stuart Highway between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek. She speaks Alyawarr and Kaytetye languages as well as English, she has spent much of her life working at the Epenarra School where she dedicated her time to teaching language and culture to young ones. Today she is employed as an arts worker with Barkly Regional Arts, managing the day-to-day of the Epenarra art centre.

Fiona Pwerl Corbett is known for her abstract depictions of the flora local to Alyawarr Country. She works in a careful and highly detailed manner, choosing a subdued palette highlighted by occasional pops of colour. Fiona’s work is influenced by the bush flowers that grow around her home in Owairtilla (Canteen Creek), she holds a particular interest in Desert Bloodwood Trees which produce brilliant arrays of yellow wildflowers in the dry season. These are depicted in imagined colours as intricate nets of flowers bloom across the canvas, morphed and pressing against one another, an explosion of rich, joyful colour.

Fiona is a senior member of the Owairtilla community, she has had a significant influence on the communities’ creative output and is a founding member of the Canteen Creek art centre, she has honed her creative practice over a decade of art making. Fiona’s practice has been influenced by trips to the nearby Utopia homelands which she travelled to as a young health worker, there she spent time with famed artists from the Eastern Desert painting movement including Emily Kngwarreye and Gloria Petyarre.

“When I paint I am sharing stories with my daughter, granddaughter, and the schoolchildren.”

FIONA PWERL CORBETT (b. 1964 - )

ANNETTE NUNGALA PETERSON (b. 1968 - )

“My paintings come from my mother’s side. She taught us about the bush tuckers, bush medicine, landscape and cultural stories.”

Jessie Beasley is known for her illustrations of the diverse botanical life of the Wutunugurra region. Jessie’s practice is informed by a foundation of cultural knowledge, her work is notable for her detailed depictions of the bush medicines that grow around Epenarra. Many fine dots coalesce to form blocks of colour against which she places loosely rendered depictions of bush medicines, blanketing the canvas in repetitive rows of joyful flowers.

Jessie’s palette responds to seasonal changes and is often composed of a limited set of similar hues, soft pinks and blues dominate springtime canvases, while yellows and browns reflect the dry season.

Jessie was born in Wutunugurra (Epenarra) in 1958 where she continues to live today. She has developed her practice over a number of decades. Her work is influenced by her mother whose stories formed the basis of Jessie’s comprehensive cultural knowledge.

“Epenarra artists paint many things. We paint the landscape and the bush tucker and bush medicines. When we go hunting, we see the landscape and we paint the landscape around us. We see the seasons change and we paint this.

The land is special to us and our children. We keep the knowledge of our land to pass to the children.”

Julie Pwerl Beasley paints from her traditional cultural knowledge. Formed with a combination of repetitive dot-making and brushwork her sweeping landscapes depict the landscapes of Ilytwelepenty (the Davenport Ranges). Hills and flowers emerge from nets of dotwork which ebb across the canvas, often distorting otherwise fully formed figures so that small details appear through a haze of dotting; dust and bush medicine seeds blowing through the air with the fabled Barkly breeze.

Julie distorts perspective so that tiny desert flowers are engorged to the size of ranges, suggesting the vastness of the landscape and signifying the importance of local flora to the region’s ecosystem and indeed the traditional way of life for which local flora is crucial to survival, providing an indicator of seasonal change, sustenance and medicine.

Julie lives in Wutunugurra (Epenarra), her Father’s and Grandmother’s country. Julie has been involved in the development of arts in the community for decades, having begun her creative practice in the early 2000s alongside her mother Carol Beasley. Today she is the senior arts worker at the Epenarra art centre.

JULIE PWERL BEASLEY (b. 1957 - )

JESSIE KEMARR BEASLEY (b. 1958 - )

“When I go out bush, to hunt and visit Country I always look for the bush flowers. I collect these and bring them home, so I can have some of the outside, inside, in the kitchen or the lounge room”.

The life of Lindy Nungarrayi Brodie is closely linked to the Barkly Region and her work speaks to her deep knowledge of her land and its history. Lindy’s work often depicts human intervention on country, whether it be the history of her family living on her Grandfather’s country during the 1940s, planes flying far above country or most notably, illustrations of the Ghan travelling through the Barkly region.

With her signature use of cadmium orange, reflecting the colour of the earth, Lindy builds texture with layers and layers of paint, slowly adding details to reflect the unique features of the land around the Barkly; spinifex, ant pits and eucalypti with bright white trunks are scatter throughout her paintings, which bare strong resemblance to the landscape, despite the degree of abstraction which Lindy injects into her work. Human intervention constantly makes itself known with the presence of trains, planes, cars and people.

More recently, Lindy’s love of bush flowers and her interest in art history inspired her to incorporate studies of bush flowers into domestic scenes in what she dubs Flower Paintings.

With her Flower Paintings Lindy portrays elements of the desert landscape within her home. Lindy’s process involves painting compositions of bush flowers in vases or mugs among the trappings of daily life.

Lindy is a Waramungu woman from Alroy Downs. Lindy began her career in Alice Springs at Jukurrpa Arts before moving to Tennant Creek to join Julalikari Arts in 2003. Finally, she joined Barkly Regional Arts in 2012, becoming a founding member of the Tartukula Artists.

Lorna Corbett’s practice moves between depictions of landscape and of the bush foods found around Canteen Creek. A great teacher, Lorna’s practice is influenced by her rich knowledge of Country, and is used as a vessel for sharing cultural knowledge with younger family members. Her works frequently contain closely observed depictions of different bush foods and grasses, distinguishable by carefully depicted variations in colour and shape which Lorna explains with great patience.

Lorna is a senior member of the Owaritilla community and has played an important role in the development of younger artists, being cited as a mentor by many. She was born in Ali Curung and began painting at a young age, listening to the story of her grandmother on her father’s side.

LORNA PWERL CORBETT (b. 1961 - )LINDY NUNGARRAYI BRODIE (b. 1973 - )

“I like to learn more about my country, my grandmother’s country. Painting is the way of learning.”

Pammy Kemarre Foster is an Alyawarr and Warumungu woman from the small community of Wutunugurra (Epenarra). Pammy’s work takes an abstract approach to the depiction of Country, capturing the rhythm of the landscape with repeated motifs and engaging an exaggerated palette to emphasise seasonal changes in the environment. Pammy’s contemporary artistic practice is built on a foundation of cultural knowledge. Her work is influenced by time spent on Country. Hunting trips often form a point of reference for Pammy.

Driving around Wutunugurra one can see the expansive planes of Ilytwelepenty (the Davenport Ranges) appear and disappear with the undulation of the road. The landscape changes dramatically as the sun moves across the sky, casting the red dust of Alyawarr Country in vivid colours.Tiny desert flowers blanket the landscape, encouraged by the heavy rain of the wet season. Pammy’s work responds to the many colours of the desert landscape with depictions of Country after anyerr (flood) and rwa (fire). Intricate nets of dotting coalesce to form a richly textured surface. Bush flowers bloom rhythmically across Pammy’s paintings, interspersed with the ubiquitous white-trunked eucalypts that are scattered throughout the hilly country. After the fire their distinctive trunks are burnt black, and the bush flowers bloom more ferociously still. The medicinal properties of these plants is highly valued; bush medicine is a subject of significance for Pammy and many of her contemporaries in the Epenarra art centre.

Rita Kemarr Beasley is an Epenarra artist known for her energetic and expressive style. Rita creates loose and evocative depictions of Country using large blocks of colour in a palette inspired by the Davenport Ranges where her home of Wutunugurra (Epenarra) is located. She builds layers and layers of paint when she works, dotting laboriously over a section of canvas only to paint over it again in a new colour. While sometimes her paintings are finished with her first few strokes, more often Rita’s intuitive process means her paintings can go through many evolutions, forming and re-forming, until the work reaches a state of completion she is satisfied with. Watching her paint, a viewer will see many apparently promising paintings appear and then be covered over, the final product often being entirely different from where she first began. The topography of thick marks and ridges of paint on the finished canvas is the only remaining evidence of the hidden paintings underneath.

Rita’s work frequently depicts sturdy trees whose thick white trunks stand starkly against her richly coloured backgrounds. These bright eucalypts flourish in the landscape surrounding Wutunugurra and feature in varied forms in the works of many of the Epenarra artists.

Rita began painting infrequently in the early 2000s, when outreach programs first brought art workshops to Wutunugurra community. Rita has had a vision impairment in one eye since birth, and at first painted under the guidance of her sisters Jessie and Topsy Beasley. Her natural fluency with materials and colours has continued to develop into a confident and entirely individual approach to painting.

Rita was born in the bush around Wutunugurra circa 1951, and has lived in the small Alyawarr community her entire life. She never married or had children, but she is surrounded by family of all ages. Spending time with family, sitting and talking and sharing stories, and attending church are her favourite ways to spend her time outside of painting at the art centre.

RITA KEMARR BEASLEY (b. 1951 - )PAMMY KEMARR FOSTER (b. 1992 - )

Susie Ngwarreye Peterson is well-known for her richly detailed portrayals of the landscape around Wutunugurra. Her use of elegant brush strokes and refined dotting bring the details of the country to life; visitors to the region frequently comment on how well her paintings capture the essence of the scenery there.

From very early in her career, Susie’s precision and natural artistry can be seen in the fine details of the foliage filling her landscapes and the subtle shifts of colour in the nets of dot work which cover the surface of her works.

Over time, Susie’s visual language has come to have a profound influence on the Epenarra artists, where a number of notable artists have developed a practice concerned primarily with landscape painting. Susies influence can be seen in paying particular interest to the bush flowers and medicines which are scattered across the Country.

Susie was born in Wutunugurra (Epenarra) in 1965 and still resides there today. She began painting and participating in silk dyeing workshops in the early 2000s, during the first sporadic visits from outreach programs which brought art supplies to Wutunugurra. It was not until 2012 that a regular outreach program was established for the community and Susie began to paint consistently; she has remained dedicated to her creative practice ever since.

Vicky Napurrula Pope is known for her expressive depictions of Country. Having begun her creative practice later in life, she was propelled by her natural artistry and strong instinct for colour, quickly developing a singular visual language. Richly textured backgrounds are built with the energetic application of paint. With a distinctly feminine palette she combines figurative renditions of local flora with rhythmic abstract patterns. Vicky’s works are notable for their movement; loose, repetitive brush strokes evoke bush flowers and seeds blowing in the breeze.

Vicky is a Tennant Creek based Alyawarr artist who grew up on Kurundi Station at the foot of the Davenport Ranges (Iytwelepenty). For Vicky, painting is a means of recording and celebrating important cultural knowledge.

IMAGE DETAILS

front cover | Ada Pula Beasley | My Country | 2022 synthetic polymer paint on canvas | 90 x 60 cm | #20080

page 2-3 | Artists (rows 1-4 L-R) | image courtesty Barkly Regional Arts | Ada Pula Beasley; Annette Nungala Peterson; Fiona Pwerl Corbett; Jessie Kemarr Beasley; Julie Pwerl Beasley; Lindy Nungarrayi Brodie; Lorna Pwerl Corbett; Pammy Kemarr Foster; Rita Kemarr Beasley; Susie Ngwarrey Peterson; Vicky Napurrula Pope

page 5 | The Barkly Tablelands | image courtesty Barkly Regional Arts

page 11 | Artist Julie Pwerl Beasley | image courtesty Barkly Regional Arts

back cover | Pammy Kemarr Foster | Bush Flowers (detail) | 2022 synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen | 122 x 122 cm | #20085

GOOD BLOSSOMS

COOEE ART

VICKY NAPURRULA POPE (b. 1951 - )SUSIE NGWARREY PETERSON (b. 1965 - )

GOOD BLOSSOMS

COOEE ART