Spirit & Energy
Lands of Aboriginal art
spirit & energy Lands of Aboriginal art
Salt Contemporary In partnership with McCulloch & McCulloch February 12-28, 2021
Text ©Susan McCulloch Design ©Lisa Reidy Images ©The artists Published by McCulloch & McCulloch & Salt Contemporary Art February 2021
Front: Maringka Burton, Anamaruku Tjuta (Many Caterpillars), acrylic on linen, 167 x 198cm (detail), Courtesy the artist and Iwantja Arts Left: Dhambit # 2 Wanambi, Gudultja with sand from Yalanba, ochres and mica studded sand, 126 x 62cm. Courtesy the artist and Buku Larrnggay Mulka
Exhibiting Art Centres Artists of Ampilatwatja Buku Larrnggay Mulka Iwantja Arts Mornington Island Arts Papunya TjupiArts Waringarri Arts Warlukurlangu Artists Warmun Arts
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EXHIBITINGARTISTS Amanda Jane Gabori Dibirdibi Angelina Nampijinpa Tasman Belinda Golder Kngwarreye Bernadine Kemarre Debbie Napaljarri Brown
MabelJuli Wiringgoon Priscilla Singer Maringka Burton Matilda Oxtoby Michelle Butler Nakamarra Rosalind Tjanyari Rosella Namok
Dhambit # Wanambi
Rosie Ngwarreye Ross
Emily Pwerle
Sarah Napurrula Leo
Gordon Barney
Selina Teece Pwerle
Janet Kngwarreye Golder
Teresa Purla
Jeannie Mills Pwerle KumantjayiTilau Nangala
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introduction
In her painterly works, Rosalind Tjanyari from the APY Lands of South Australia says she aims to capture the ‘spirit and energy’ of her country that encompasses the landscape, history, and spiritual connections to her lands.1 Richly coloured, her paintings weave colour through the canvas, flickering with an energy and excitement as they reference hidden pathways across the lands and subtly hint at the fluidity of movement and of journeys. A similar dynamism characterises the other 40 acrylics, barks, ochres and sculptures that feature in the exhibition. Artists represented include some of Australia’s most senior including the Kimberley’s Mabel Juli, Papunya’s Kumantjayi Tilau Nangala and Utopia’s Emily Pwerle. As well, this broad ranging exhibition comprises acrylic and ochre paintings by mid generation and emerging artists from the APY Lands, Central Australia, Western Desert, Utopia, Far North Queensland and the Kimberley. Featured also are striking sculptural works including imposing memorial poles and barks by Arnhem Land artists including the mica-studded black sand works by senior East Arnhem Land artist Dhambit #2 Wanambi.
Susan McCulloch February 2021 1. Rosalind Tjanyari, artwork description. Courtesy Iwantja Arts
Left: Rosalind Tjanyar and Priscilla Singer, Ngura (Country), acrylic on linen, 152 x 122cm (detail). Courtesy the artists and Iwantja Arts
Amanda Jane Gabori Dibirdibi, Dibirdibi Scales, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 90cm | MM3929 | $3900 Amanda Jane Gabori is a highly talented emerging artist and the youngest daughter of the late great artist Sally Gabori from Mornington Island, FNQ. Here she is representing the scales of her father’s and grandfather’s totem animal the rock cod.
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Angelina Nampijinpa Tasman, Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) Mikanji, 2020, acrylic on linen 107 x 46cm | MM5083 | $1200 Born in 1951, Angelina Nampijinpa Tasman is a senior artist at Yuendumu in the Western Desert. In this painting she relates the water dreaming story to the west of Yuendumu in which creation ancestral rainmakers travelled the lands unleashing great storms that created the country’s water courses and large water-filled rockholes.
Belinda Golder Kngwarreye, Bush Flowers, 2020, acrylic on linen, 200 x 110cm | MM5180 | $3700 A talented younger generation artist from Utopia in the NT, Belinda Golder Kngwarreye uses a heavily loaded brush to create multi-layered paintings that sing with colour. She paints the flowers and bush plums sacred to the women of the region.
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Bernadine Kemarre, Bush Medicine Leaves, 2020, acrylic on linen, 126 x 93cm | MM5011 | $2500 Born in 1974, Bernadine Kemarre brilliantly captures the leaves used for bush medicine by the women of the community of Utopia with great finesse and an ever evolving palette.
Collaborative – Rosalind Tjanyari & Priscilla Singer, Ngura (Country), 2020, acrylic on linen, 152 x 198cm | MM4892 | $4900 Leading mid-career artists Rosalind Tjanyari and Priscilla Singer from the APY Lands frequently collaborate on paintings of their country. This includes representations of the physical geography such as rockholes, underground springs, sacred sites and mountain formations. ‘Ngura’ also represents the place to which an individual belongs – one’s family connections, skin groups and language.
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Collaborative – Rosalind Tjanyari & Priscilla Singer, Ngura (Country), 2020, acrylic on linen, 122 x 152 cm | MM4893 | $3200 Leading mid-career artists Rosalind Tjanyari and Priscilla Singer from the APY Lands frequently collaborate on paintings of their country. This includes the physical geography such as rockholes, underground springs, sacred sites and mountain formations. ‘Ngura’ also represents the place to which an individual belongs – one’s family connections, skin groups and language.
Debbie Napaljarri Brown, Wanakiji Jukurrpa (Bush Tomato Dreaming), 2020, acrylic on linen, 122 x 46cm | MM5039 | $1400 Younger generation Western Desert artist Debbie Napaljarri Brown learnt to paint from her famous grandfather, the late Pegleg Tjampitjinpa and her grandmother Margaret Napaljarri Brown. In her paintings of the bush tomato dreaming she represents the indigenous plant as both a food source and the dreaming story of her lands to the north of Yuendumu.
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Dhambit # 2 Wanambit, Gudultja with sand from Yalanba, 2020, ochres and black mica sand on bark, 126 x 62cm | MM5220 | $3800 Born in 1970, North East Arnhem Land artist Dhambit #2 Wanambi comes from a family of famous artists including Wukun Wanambi and Boliny Wanambi. Her work is striking for her use of the mica-studded black sand unique to her family’s country of Yalanba and which she uses to great effect to relate extensive creation stories in her barks and memorial larrakitj poles.
Emily Pwerle, Awelye, 2020, acrylic on linen, 150 x 100cm | MM5174 | $3600 Now in her late 90s, Anmatyerre painter Emily Pwerle is one of the important family group of Utopia artists which includes her late sister Minnie Pwerle, her niece Barbara Weir and great nieces Charmaine Pwerle and Teresa Purla. Her colourful paintings represent the designs women paint on their bodies for ceremonies.
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Gordon Barney, Birnoo Country, 2013, ochre and charcoal on canvas, 120 x 90cm | MM5156 | $3700 An important law and cultural leader of the East Kimberley, Gordon Barney was born at Alice Downs Station (Birnoo) in 1945. In his early years he was a stockman and rodeo rider. Now a leading painter, in his textured ochres he depicts the mountain ranges and plants of his Birnoo country.
Janet Golder Kngwarreye, My Country, 2021, acrylic on linen, 220 x 110cm | MM5217 | $4500 Born in 1973, Janet Golder Kngwarreye is a mid-career artist of the Utopia region. Here she celebrates her country through depicting a number of its key women’s creation stories. These include bush melon, bush yam (of which she is a traditional custodian) and women’s ceremonies (Awelye) in which women paint their bodies and perform songs and dances to bring fertility to the lands.
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Janet Golder Kngwarreye, My Country, 2021, acrylic on linen, 118 x 91cm | MM5213 | $2700 Born in 1973, Janet Golder Kngwarreye is a mid-career artist of the Utopia region. Here she celebrates her country through depicting a number of its key women’s creation stories. These include bush melon, bush yam (of which she is a traditional custodian) and women’s ceremonies (Awelye) in which women paint their bodies and perform songs and dances to bring fertility to the lands.
Jeannie Mills Pwerle, Yam Dreaming, 2020, acrylic on linen, 115 x 100cm | MM5199 | $2400 An established and highly respected Alyawarre artist from the Utopia region, Jeannie Mills Pwerle is a traditional healer as well as artist. Using several colours on the same brushstroke, she skillfully represents the root system and seeds of the native yam which grows in her country. A much-collected food, the yam also has deep ceremonial significance to Alyawarre women.
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Kumantjayi Tilau Nangala, Mikantji, 2019, acrylic on linen, 152 x 122cm | MM5151 | $4900 The late Kumuntjayi Tilau Nangala (1933-2020) was the most senior law woman and cultural leader of the Western Desert community of Papunya. Her paintings feature the important water dreaming site of Mikantji where women perform ceremonies celebrating the creation of this site by the storm ancestors. Here, the U shapes are women, the circles are waterholes, the long sinuous lines are creeks, and the short, curved lines are puuli or hills.
Mabel Juli Wiringgoon, Garnkiny Ngarranggarni, 2012, ochres on canvas, 90 x 120cm | MM5153 | $7900 Award-winning senior East Kimberley artist Mabel Juli Wiringoon paints the creation story of Garnkiny (the moon) . In Ngarranggarni (the Dreaming/creation times) the moon is a man. Having fallen in love with his mother-in-law and thence exiled by the old people, Garnkiny climbs a hill from where he looked down on the people, saying that they are going to die but he would always live. And so as Juli says he ‘always appears as the new moon in the west, dies for three days, rests for a little while and then climbs up again.’
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Maringka Burton, Anamaruku Tjuta (Many Caterpillars), 2020, acrylic on linen, 167 x 198cm | MM5142 | $6900 Senior APY artist Maringka Burton is a traditional healer as well as painter. She paints her personal caterpillar-dreaming story relating to the country of her birth near the WA/SA border. She depicts the intricate twists and turns of the caterpillars as they burrow tunnels and holes into the earth leaving a patterned design of the lands on the desert sands. In her healing practice, she also uses caterpillar silk to bind cuts and help heal burns.
Matilda Oxtoby, Wandjina, 2020, natural pigments on canvas, 100 x 80cm | MM5172 | $1800 Matilda is an established artist from Kalumburu, WA noted for her paintings of the ancestral spirits, the Wandjina who created the country, people and animals in the NW Kimberley before turning themselves into rock paintings. They are sometimes called “lightning man” or “rain maker” as every year they replenish water holes, creeks and rivers through making the wet season.
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Michelle Butler Nakamarra, My Country, 2020, acrylic on linen, 107 x 76cm | MM5110 | $1900 Michelle Butler is a rising star’ Western Desert artist from a long line of important painters that includes her grandfather the late Tommy Lowry Tjapaltjarri. She paints the dramatic sandhills cut through with watercourses and rockholes around her homeland of Tjukurla - a remote Western desert community home to Pintupi and Ngaanyatjarra people.
Rosalind Tjanyari, Ngura Kuuti (Spirit Country), 2019, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 152cm | MM4696 | $2900 In her painterly works, Rosalind Tjanyari from the APY Lands of South Australia aims to capture the ‘spirit and energy’ of her country that encompasses the landscape, history, and spiritual connections to her lands. Richly-hued, her paintings weave colour through the canvas, flickering with an energy and excitement as they reference hidden pathways across the lands and subtly hint at the fluidity of movement and of journeys.
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Rosalind Tjanyari, Ngura Kuuti (Spirit Country), 2020, acrylic on linen, 122 x 152cm | MM5148 | $3200 In her painterly works, Rosalind Tjanyari from the APY Lands of South Australia aims to capture the ‘spirit and energy’ of her country that encompasses the landscape, history, and spiritual connections to her lands. Richly-hued, her paintings weave colour through the canvas, flickering with an energy and excitement as they reference hidden pathways across the lands and subtly hint at the fluidity of movement and of journeys.
Rosella Namok, Him Ya Come ... Shower Rain, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 108 x180cm | MM3966 | $8500 Award winning mid-career painter Rosella Namok’s work represents the two worlds of contemporary and traditional Indigenous art. Her images derive from representation of her Cape York Peninsula Lockhart River ‘sandbeach’ country. They have been included in numerous leading public gallery and other leading exhibitions in Australia and internationally since the early 1990s. In this atmospheric painting she captures the fine tropical rain falling over the sea as in the natural post sunset phenomenon of serein – in which fine rain falls from a cloudless sky.
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Rosie Ngwarreye Ross, Sugarbag Dreaming, 2020, acrylic on linen, 91 x 61cm | MM5164 | $1800 Born in 1951, Rosie Ngwarreye Ross is a senior artist of the Ampilatwatja community, NT. She paints the flowers and leaves used for bush medicine. Sugarbag is a name of both the honey made by the native bees and also for the sweet nectar that comes from the big yellow flowers of the “tarrkarr� trees.
Sarah Napurrurla Leo, Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) Puyurru, 2020, acrylic on linen, 107x 61cm | MM 5072 | $1500 Born in 1971 Sarah Napurrula Leo is a talented mid generation Warlpiri artist from the Western Desert. Here she depicts the site of Puyurru, west of Yuendumu, in ancestral creation times. Here, in usually dry creek beds where there are ‘mulju’ (soakages), or naturally occurring wells, two rainmakers, sang the rain, unleashing a giant storm that travelled across the country from east to west, creating rockholes and water courses as it travelled across the country.
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Selina Teece Pwerle, My Country, 2020, acrylic on linen, 90 x 70cm | MM5179 | $2900 Selina Teece Pwerle was born in 1977 her traditional country of Antarrengeny in Alyawarre country north of the Utopia region 240 km north east of Alice Springs. Growing up surrounded by famous artists, she started painting at a young age and has developed an impressive range of styles. Her brilliantly coloured, intricately detailed landscapes depict her country as it often is – filled with wildflowers and rich hued trees, sands and sky.
Selina Teece Pwerle, My Country, 2020, acrylic on linen, 90 x 70cm | MM5176 | $2900 Selina Teece Pwerle was born in 1977 in her traditional country of Antarrengeny in Alyawarre country north of the Utopia region 240 km north east of Alice Springs. Growing up surrounded by famous artists, she started painting at a young age and has developed an impressive range of styles and finesse. Her brilliantly coloured, intricately detailed landscapes depict her country as it often is – filled with wildflowers and vibrant trees, sands and sky.
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Selina Teece Pwerle, Antarrengeny – My Country, 2020, acrylic on linen, 150 x 120cm | MM5219 | $6900 Selina Teece Pwerle was born in 1977 in her traditional country of Antarrengeny in Alyawarre country north of the Utopia region 240 km north east of Alice Springs. Growing up surrounded by famous artists, she started painting at a young age and has developed an impressive range of styles. Her brilliantly coloured, intricately detailed landscapes depict her country as it often is – filled with wildflowers and vibrant trees, sands and sky.
Selina Teece Pwerle, Gum Blossoms, 2020, acrylic on linen, 150 x 70cm | MM5207 | $3200 Selina Teece Pwerle was born in 1977 in her traditional country of Antarrengeny in Alyawarre country north of the Utopia region 240 km north east of Alice Springs. Growing up surrounded by famous artists, she started painting at a young age and has developed an impressive range of styles and finesse. Several times a year as the leaves of trees and petals dry they fall off and are blown around the ground by the wind. Selina captures this fleeting moment as here in her beautiful painting of gum blossoms.
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Teresa Purla, Awelye, 2020, acrylic on linen, 120 x 90cm | MM5182 | $3700 An Anmatyere artist from the Utopia region, Teresa Purla was born in 1963. Her grandmother was the celebrated painter the late Minnie Pwerle and her mother, the equally celebrated artist, Barbara Weir. Teresa has been painting since she was a young woman – inspired by her country of Atnwengerrp – country of grandmother, mother and other female relatives, She paints the large river that runs through her country, its sacred sites and the tracks of her creation ancestors as they moved through the lands.
Athena Nangala Granites, Napljarri-warnu Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming), 2020, painted metal, 80 cm(h) x 101cm(l) x 4 cm(w) | MM5051 | $2900 As part of their camp dog rescue and re-adoption programme the artists of Yuendumu make metal sculptures of small and large dogs in partnership with the metal art programme of Greenbush Art Group at Alice Springs Correctional Centre. The metalworkers make the shapes of the dogs which the artists then paint with their traditional dreaming designs, such as this Seven Sisters story that relates the creation of the Pleiades by talented younger generation artist Athena Nangala Granites.
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Binygurr Wirrpanda, Mana at Lutumba, 2019, earth pigments and sand on stringybark, larrakitj (memorial poles) L: 256 x 20cm | MM5167 | $9500 R: 189 x 15cm | MM5203 | $5,900 Innovative North East Arnhem Land carver, Binygurr Wirrpanda’s intricately carved memorial poles feature the story of Mana, the ancestral shark and the sacred homelands of Lutumba. Incorporating the sand from the beaches of Lutumba, he depicts its complex creation story that includes the relationship between the souls of its Yolngu (traditional owners) and the ancestral shark.
L to R: Matati Gumana, Gany’tjurr, 2020, ochres on wood, 123 x 11cm | MM5069 | $2200 Binygurr Wirrpanda, Gan’tjurr, 2020, 157 x 12 x 12cm | MM5193 | $4500 Here, two leading carvers from North East Arnhem land have carved representations of Gan’tjurr (Reef Heron) a bird prolific in their area and celebrated in ceremonies and song by hunters of the region.
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L to R: Dhambit # Wanambi, Yalanba, 2020, ochres and mica sand on wood, 203 x 18cm | MM5166 | $5200 Naminapu Maymuru-White, Milingiyawuy, 2020, ochres on wood, 186cm | MM5062 | $6200 Naminapu Maymuru-White, Milingiyawuy, 2020, ochres on wood, 239cm | MM5061 | $8900 Striking blacks and whites feature in larrakitj (ceremonial poles) carved and painted by two leading female artists of N.E. Arnhem Land. Younger generation artist Dhambit # Wanambi comes from a long line of famous artists and uses the mica-studded sand of her homelands of Yalanba in her work that relates its creation story. Senior and award winning artist Naminapu Maymuru-White has become famous for her lyrical depictions of the creation of the Milky Way and its significant place in Yolngu cosmology.
Yilpirr Wanambi, Gurka’wuy – larrakitj, 2019. ochres on wood L to R: MM4815, 200cm, $4900 | MM5163, 225cm, $6200 | MM4816, 196cm, $4900 These finely-honed memorial poles by leading NE Arnhem Land artist Yilpirr Wanambi tell of his homeland around Gurka’wuy River. Flowing out through Trial Bay, Gurka’wuy was created by the gouging of the land by a eucalypt felled by Wuyal the Ancestral Sugar Bag searching for honey. Here, the freshwater of the river streams past rocks, clashing in turbulent unity with incoming tidal waters – the ensuing bubbles imbuing life force for its first peoples, whose descendants regularly perform ceremonies to reinforce the spirit of their ancestors and this sacred place.
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Spirit & Energy
February 12-28, 2021
Curated by McCulloch & McCulloch Salt Contemporary Art
33-35 Hesse Street, Queenscliff VIC 3225 salt-art.com.au