RADIANCE—Artwork from Desert Country

RADIANCE Artwork from Desert Country

Introduction Lynda Dorrington FORM Executive Director

RADIANCE brings together work from seven community owned and operated art centres illustrating the rich and potent artistic exploration of the desert as it is understood and envisioned by Indigenous artists. Art centres continue to play a vital role as creative and community hubs that provide a professional art studio environment to nurture talent and artistic excellence.

Art centres are also spaces for people to gather, and to share, which strengthens culture, community and wellbeing. The Ernabella art centre, founded in 1948, was the first established Indigenous art centre and is represented in this show. The ability to remain current and viable demonstrates how art centres continue to be robust models for enterprise, culture and creativity in remote Australia.

FORM’s commitment to the art centre model is demonstrated through our development and management of the Spinifex Hill Studio, an Indigenous art centre located in South Hedland that opened early in 2014 and works to support culture, livelihoods, and wellbeing. Our present and future programming continues to develop collaborative platforms that enable the distinctive richness and wealth of Indigenous creative expression to flourish.

FORM’s Indigenous programming has continued to explore the deep connection between place and culture, Country and community, for over a decade. We have witnessed the thriving cultural and artistic life that exists in some of our nation’s most remote communities, which are often invisible or stereotyped for those who live in the cities.

Our programming has continued to work on addressing the gap between the city and the regions by promoting connections between the two through developing projects in collaborative partnership with regional communities. Most recently, Marlbatharndu Wanggagu; Once Upon a Time in the West revealed the station lives of Banyjima, Yinhawangka, and Nyiyaparli people in their own voices via a creative platform.

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Whilst the Indigenous contribution to the station industry is largely unacknowledged, artists from Desert Australia are internationally renowned for the brilliance of their canvases. The RADIANCE exhibition once again illustrates the resplendent aesthetic and artistic power of these remote communities and the art centres that create the conditions for artists to thrive.

RADIANCE Sharmila Wood FORM Curator

RADIANCE is a showcase of recent artwork by Indigenous artists from the desert art centres of Mimili Maku, Warnayaka, Tjungu Palya, Ernabella Arts, Papulankutja, Warlukurlangu and Ikuntji.

The artwork in RADIANCE represents the desert in canvases which display melodic patterning and bold gesture that resonate with the sensuality of colour and paint. These paintings invite the viewer to delve deeper into understanding the complex relationship between people and place, Country and community, the connection between past, present and future, and the linkages between the everyday and Tjukurrpa (Dreaming). This complex and interconnected web encompassing society, spirituality, land, ecology, and natural land management is evoked in the potency of this desert artwork.

In RADIANCE a diverse range of expressions reveal the richness of Indigenous creative and cultural traditions. Artists fully exploit the power of colour and light, creating radiant paintings that offer a compelling insight into being in and imagining place from the traditional owners of Desert Australia. The artistic vision represented in RADIANCE is a stark contrast to the idea of Australia’s interior that the explorer J.W. Gregory described in the memoirs of his journey The Dead Heart of Australia. Gregory concluded ‘there is nothing on earth more desolate than its stony plains and bare clay-pots.’

Whilst painting on canvas continues to dominate the desert art scene, artists welcome the opportunity to experiment and have continued to demonstrate a willingness to take risks, synthesise and incorporate new influences, skills and experiences into their paintings. This has seen the desert art movement continually revive and renew. Warnayaka Art Centre’s special initiative, YAMA is an experimental project which combines elements of new media, digital art, and installation with Indigenous forms of song, ceremonial dance, and Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) painting. YAMA is the Warlpiri word for ‘reflection’, or ‘mirror’ and the shimmering effect is created as projections, film and photography twinkle and glisten across the night.

RADIANCE reveals how Indigenous artists employ light, colour and pattern as luminescence. Artists encourage us to expand our perception of the desert, so that we see and experience it anew.

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Light in Indigenous art from the desert Chrischona Schmidt (PhD, ANU)

Indigenous art of the desert region expresses a connection between the landscape and ancestral presence. An ancestral presence felt through the light, shimmer or brilliance. Brilliance or radiance is often created in two different manners: through the choice of colours and actual brilliance of the paint, and through geometrical designs and their echoes across the canvas.

Both aesthetic approaches reflect the use of different techniques. This includes the use of mark or gesture on canvas in which the paint is so thickly and expressively applied to create a brilliant effect of the acrylic paint onto the surface. This reminds the viewer of ceremonies, in which oil is mixed with ochre and applied to the body creating a shimmer effect throughout the ceremony. The painted bodies move and the designs catch the light, reflecting it.

Throughout the ceremony the dancer embodies his/ her ancestral totem and their travels. The painted

body reflects the ancestral presence within the ceremony but also within the body. The thickly applied paint onto the canvas catches the light in a similar way, letting the highlights radiate, evoking the light and heat of the desert at the same time as the omnipresent spirituality of the ancestral beings who travelled through this landscape during Tjukurrpa (the Dreaming). Alice Nampitjinpa’s minimalistic representations of Talaalpi, her Country near Kintore on the Western Australian border are bold and vibrant, using thick brushstrokes to apply ‘strong’ colours that suggest an ancestral presence within her artwork.

The other technique used to depict ancestral presence and spirituality are patterns created through dots and brushstrokes, which are repeated across the surface of the canvas; through this repetition they evoke a sense of radiance, shimmer and brilliance. Patterns catch

The Brilliance of paintings is [...] itself felt as a manifestation of ancestral power.

(Morphy 1991:194)

the light and create an optical effect of movement across the canvas. This movement can refer to the ancestral presence in the place depicted, the ancestral presence on the surface of the painting and within the Tjukurrpa (the Dreaming) story of the painting. The paintings come to life in front of the viewer, they move across the surface and into it at the same time as out of the surface. These movements also remind the viewer of the many layers of knowledge hidden within an artwork, and only the surface being accessible to the uninitiated.

Together, this specific use of colour and technique create an Indigenous aesthetic of landscape painting, in which the capturing of ancestral presence is a key element. The painting surfaces of Indigenous art from the Desert regions of Central Australia represent the first visible connection between country, Tjukurrpa (the Dreaming) and the presence of ancestral spirituality.

References: Morphy, Howard 1991: Ancestral Connections – Art and an Indigenous System of Knowledge, University of Chicago Press, Chicago et al.

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Mimili Maku The community of Mimili is in the far north west of South Australia at the base of the Everard Ranges in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. It is six hundred and forty five kilometres south of Alice Springs which is the nearest large town. Mimili is home to three hundred and fifty Anangu people who speak a mix of Yankunytjatjara, Pitjantjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra and Luritja. The community was established in the early 1970’s after the land was returned to the traditional owners.

The community occupies land that was previously part of Everard Park Station. Many of the older members of the community were employed on the station. The art centre takes its name from the maku (witchetty grub) found in the roots of the Acacia Kempeana. The Maku Tjukurrpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant story from this area. Mimili Maku Arts is an Indigenous-owned and governed arts business. The art centre involves men and women, young people and old people from the community and four surrounding homelands of Perentie Bore, Wanmara, Blue Hills and Sandy Bore.

Warlukurlangu Warlukurlangu Artists is one of the longest running and most successful Indigenous-owned art centres in Central Australia. It is an important repository of Warlpiri culture. Anyone in the communities of Yuendumu and Nyirripi can engage with the activities of the art centre. People also come from other nearby outlying communities, Yuelumu, Laramba, Willowra and Alice Springs to sell craft items through the centre. There are over six hundred artists currently participating. Many are engaged daily whilst some may do only one or two paintings a year. Artists actively participate in the ongoing development of the organisation. It is not uncommon to find several generations of one family at the art centre at any one time, and grandparents painting with their grandchildren. In this way the younger generations are being instructed in the stories and designs of their traditional culture. Frequently, the older artists can be heard singing the songs associated with the story they are painting. It is often said that by the very act of painting traditional Indigenous culture is being reinvigorated and kept alive. Paintings embedded with desert tracks, iconic traces, mapping charts, animate and inanimate life are colourfully set down for teaching new generations, aesthetic pleasure, commerce, archiving and sheer joy.

T j u n g u P a l ya Tjungu Palya means working together in a good and happy way and refers to this collaboration between diverse homelands. At Tjungu Palya artists from the three communities of Kanpi, Nyapari and Watarru come together to paint and earn money to support their families. In the past eight years since its incorporation in 2006, Tjungu Palya has grown to be a dynamic and innovative community art centre. Located about one hundred kilometres south of Uluru (Ayres Rock), Nyapari is set at the base of the majestic Mann Ranges in the heart of country traditionally owned by the Pitjantjatjara people.

These ranges are known to Anangu as Murputja, likening the mountain to the bony ridge of a person’s spine, and are the source of many water holes and traditional camping places. The homelands of Kanpi, Nyapari, Watarru, Angatja, Umpukulu and Tjankanu have grown into permanent settlements.

Over fifty artists from Murputja joined together with family members living in traditional country one hundred and eighty kilometres to the south at Watarru and created Tjungu Palya.

Ernabella Arts Established in 1948, Ernabella Arts is Australia’s oldest, continuously running Indigenous Art Centre. Ernabella Arts is in Pukatja Community, at the eastern end of the Musgrave Ranges in the far north west of South Australia. Pukatja was the first permanent settlement on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands). The Presbyterian Board of Missions established the mission in 1937, and a craft room was established in 1948. The first craft products were handloomed woven fabrics and hand-pulled and knotted floor rugs with a unique pattern that became known as ‘the Ernabella walka’ or anapalayaku walka (Ernabella’s design). The centre’s inimitable reputation lies in the adaptability and innovation of the artists who have been introduced to many different mediums since the craft room began. Today its varied group of artists is a mix of young and old, men and women. There are very senior Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara men. The members of Ernabella Arts are always reinvigorating their centre, seeing it through its evolution from the first incarnation as a craft room, into a culturally strong contemporary art centre.

Ikuntji Ikuntji/Haasts Bluff was established in the 1940s as the western outpost of the Finke River Mission, which had also set up Ntaria (Hermannsburg) in the late 19th century. The mission became a ration depot and the furthest point of settlement in the Western Desert. During the 1940s and 1950s, over one thousand people were living here and accessing its water sources. Once these dried up and Papunya was established many people moved closer to their homelands and left Ikuntji/ Haasts Bluff. However, some had married locals and stayed. This means a tremendous diversity of connections to various countries for artists from Ikuntji/Haasts Bluff, some reaching as far as the Docker River and Lake Mackay in Western Australia, Pukatja (Ernabella) in South Australia, and north to Lajamanu in the Northern Territory.

This history of being a crossway has influenced the art at Ikuntji. The connection between Ikuntji/ Haasts Bluff community members and other communities is evident in their art. Ikuntji Artists was first established in 1992 as a women’s centre with the help of Melbourne artist Marina Strocchi.

Strocchi came to run arts workshops for three months and ended up staying in the community for four and a half years, establishing the art centre with a group of women, including the late Esther Jugadai and the late Narputta Jugadai. Artists such as Long Tom Tjapanangka and his partner Mitjili Napurrula were key artists during this time. In these early years Ikuntji Artists became renowned for their vibrant colours and unique style of painting.

Since 1992 three generations of artists have followed on from these early attempts. Eunice Napanangka Jack is the only founding member who is still alive and remembers printing T-shirts and selling these at football games. The most recent development in the history of the art centre has been the exposure to non-Indigenous artists with a variety of artistic backgrounds, skills and techniques. These encounters have led to a revitalization and rejuvenation of the art movement.

Papulankutja Artists Papulankutja was established after Ngaayatjarra people walked out of Warburton mission in the 1970s and returned to their land. Papulankutja Artists was established in 2001 and incorporated in 2004 growing out of Blackstone’s women’s centre. After many years of working through the women’s centre and then the community hall, Papulankutja Artists opened their own Art Studio in 2009.

Papulankutja Artists is known for its innovative fibre work, as well as their painters and carvers. Fibre Artists from Papulankutja won the 2005 National Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander Art Award with a large woven Toyota. Paintings relate to Country and include Seven Sisters’ story, Wati Kutjarra, IIlupa and Nintuka. Papulankutja Artists are very community focussed. Today, women and men, young people and old people work together.

Papulankutja Artists has reached out to neighbouring communities and started a regional art reach program in 2008. There are now sixty artists at Papulankutja and twenty artists at Jameson working for Papulankutja Artists W a r n aya k a Traditionally Warlpiri artwork was on wood and sand. Later it was put onto the body. Now Warnayaka artists use acrylic paint on canvas, and digital art is emerging as the new medium of the younger generation. Regardless of the medium, these are platforms for people to learn their culture. The Warlpiri, of Warnayaka Art, live in Lajamanu in the Northern Territory of Australia. This is the story for the Warlpiri nation, two: Ngalia and Warnayaka. Warnayaka art centre is for the young people to learn their culture and law. It is important for youth to learn the knowledge held by the Ngalia and Warnayaka peoples who are now living as one in Lajamanu. The art centre is for the survival of culture from the grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ country. Some of our important Dreaming sites are hundreds of kilometres from Lajamanu. The grandchildren and great grandchildren who live in Lajamanu need to know their Tjukurrpa otherwise they will lose their inheritance to this important Country.

They need to know the Warlpiri Ngalia Laws so they can at anytime go onto their great grandfather’s and ancestors’ land, especially where these important dreaming sites are, like at z and Kana-kurlangu. This is why the art centre is so important to the people of Lajamanu.

At any time children can see the works of the elders telling them the Kurdiji, the Law, and all that is tied into the Jukurrpa paintings.

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Antara (detail), Betty Kuntiwa Pumani. MIMILI MAKU. 198cm x 121cm framed

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Piltati Tjukurpa (detail). Eileen Yartja Stevens. TJUNGU PALYA. 138cm x 202cm framed

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Antara, Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin. MIMILI MAKU. 150cm x 150cm

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Ngayuku Ngura (detail), Alison Munti Riley. ERNABELLA ARTS, 68cm x 100cm

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Seed Dreaming, Rosie and Molly Napurrurla Tasman. WARNAKAYA, 180cm x 150cm

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Janmarda Jukurrpa (Bush Onion Dreaming), Sarah Napaurrurla White. WARLUKURLANGU. 107cm x 91cm

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Ngura Kamanti (detail), Maringka Baker. TJUNGU PALYA, 200cm x 120cm- Framed

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Pukara, Iyawi Wikilyiri. TJUNGU PALYA. 150cm x 120cm- Framed

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Husband and Wife Story (detail). Ginger Wikilyiri and Iyawi Wikilyiri. TJUNGA PALYA. 151cm x 100cm

10. Camela Tjukurpa (detail). Niningka Munkuri Lewis. ERNABELLA ARTS. 100cm x 122cm 11. Wakirlpirri Jukurrpa (Dogwood Tree Dreaming) (detail). Liddy Napanangka Walker. WARLUKURLANGU. 183cm x 122cm 12. Tjilkamala - Porcupine Rockhole (detail). Alice Nampitjinpa. IKUNTJI ARTISTS. 61cm x 107cm framed 13. Ngayuku Ngura (detail). Langaliki Langaliki. ERNABELLA ARTS. 68cm x 68cm 14. Minyma Malilu (detail). Kani Patricia Tunkin. TJUNGU PALYA. 150cm x 100cm framed 15. Winbarrku- West of Kintore. Eunice Napanangka Jack. IKUNTJI ARTISTS. 137cm x 122cm framed 16. Ngayuku Mamaku Ngura (My Father’s Country). Maureen Baker, TJUNGU PALYA. 120cm x 150cm framed 17. Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) - Pirlinyarnu. Julie Nangala Robertson. WARLUKURLANGU. 152cm x 122cm 18. Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) - Puyurru. Shorty Jangala Robertson. WARLUKURLANGU. 152cm x 152cm framed 19. Antara- Maku Dreaming. Ngupulya Pumani Margaret. MIMILI MAKU. 152cm x 122cm framed

Project initiated and managed by FORM

Principal Partner

Presented by

Sponsored by

FORM is supported by the Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy, an initiative of the Australian State and Territory Governments.

FORM is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.