Bush Medicine Country : Artists of Ampilatwatja

BUSH MEDICINE COUNTRY Artists of Ampilatwatja

Carers

of

C o u n t ry

From top: Colleen Ngwarreye Morton demonstrates the collecting of leaves used in bush medicine, Michelle Pula Holmes and Rosie Ngwarreye Ross painting in the studio at Ampilatwatja.

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BUSH MEDICINE COUNTRY Artists of Ampilatwatja Carers

of

C o u n t ry

introduction

The Alyawarre artists of the Ampilatwatja community, approximately 300km north east of Alice Springs have carved out a unique place in contemporary Australian Aboriginal art.

Almost 20 years ago when the group formed, artists decided to represent their strong connection to country by depicting it in landscape form rather than the iconography of dreaming stories as in that of western and other central desert art. As they describe it, their paintings depict the country ‘on which the dreaming stories sit’.

However these intricate paintings are no superficial view of lands. Rather they contain the information held sacred to Ampilawatja artists and their people but hidden from public view, underneath the surface and masked beneath delicate fields of dots. The many levels of interpretation permit artists to present their art to an often culturally untutored public without compromising its religious nature. Artists talk of two broad levels of interpretation, the “inside” stories which are restricted to those of the appropriate ritual standing, and the “outside” stories which are open to all.

These paintings also help us, the viewers, to understand that what we may imagine to be harsh and featureless deserts are in fact anything but. Here intersecting the red-earthed lands are watercourses snaking their way through lightly forested terrain. This, after the rains, burst into life with foliage of many shades of green punctuated by magenta, yellow, purple and red of wildflowers.

Of special importance is the recording through art of the many flowers, leaves, stems and seeds of plants used in bush medicine. The concentration on this subject fulfils several purposes. Trips to collect bush medicine plants and those of bush foods by groups of women enable knowledge

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of the types, habitat and usage of plants to be acquired by successive generations; the usage of the plants themselves promotes health and well being while artists hone their own distinctive styles to futher their careers as artists.

Horizons and sky background Ada Pula Beasley’s lush views of her country; Jeannie Beasley Pula homes in on trees as patchworks across the land; Kathleen Rambler takes both a broad and intimate view of her father’s country in sweeping skys with tiny white cockatoos all but camouflaged amongst flowers, trees and rocks. Margaret Kemarre Ross, Rosie Ngwarreye Ross and Colleen Pula Morton focus on the bush flowers themselves, while Michelle Pula Holmes’ aerial views of her lands miraculously capture both its vast scale and her intimate knowledge of its topography.

These uplifting paintings both delight and excite as they graphically demonstrate artists’ strong connection to, and care of their lands and the abundance of plants that can be sustained with knowledgeable care inherited over countless generations.

Today these joyous paintings especially imbue us with a sense of hope in these most challenging of times.

Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs April 2020

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Ada Pula Beasley

Ada Pula Beasley is an Alyawarre artist born in 1959. She is the sister of artist Michelle Holmes and the daughter of artist Jilly Holmes. Ada is very interested in preserving her culture and teaching the younger artists about country and bush medicines. These include mulga and witchetty trees, native fuschia, river red gum, spinifex grass and the many varieties of bush flowers. Ada started painting with Artists of Ampilatwaja in 2012.

Famous for its unique bush medicine and desert landscape depictions, the artists paint their country on which the dreaming stories sit. Ada’s landscapes feature sweeps of lands as well as its intricate detail and include the changing of light with different times of the day, such as the beautiful purple sky in this twilight work.

1. Ada Pula Beasley, My Country 2019, acrylic on canvas, 91 x 61 cm MM4874 | $1800

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Ada Pula Beasley

Ada Pula Beasley is an Alyawarre artist born in 1959. She is the sister of artist Michelle Holmes and the daughter of artist Jilly Holmes. Ada is very interested in preserving her culture and teaching the younger artists about country and bush medicines.

Ada started painting with Artists of Ampilatwaja in 2012. She says : ‘I paint so my kids will learn about their country. I like painting because it reminds me of my country and where the bush medicine and bush tucker grow and where we go hunting.’ Her works therefore are always focussed on her inherited land as her subject, with a botanical art element documenting the important food and plant medicine knowledge of this land, including mulga and witchetty trees, native fuschia, river red gum, spinifex grass and the many varieties of bush flowers.

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2. Ada Pula Beasley, My Country 2019, acrylic on canvas, 107 x 51 cm MM4855 | $1800

Ada Pula Beasley

Born in 1959, Ada Beasley is the sister of artist Michelle Holmes Pula and the daughter of artist Jilly Holmes. She is very interested in preserving her culture and teaching the younger artists about country and bush medicines, these include mulga and witchetty trees, native fuschia, river red gum, spinifex grass and the many varieties of bush flowers.

Her landscapes include the land viewed at midday through to sunrise, the blue sky in this work evokes the stunning landscape of Central Australia during the day, when the sun is at its peak.

3. Ada Pula Beasley, My Country 2020, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 76 cm MM4886 | $1700

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2. Ada Pula Beasley, My Country 2019, acrylic on canvas, 107 x 51 cm MM4855 | $1800

Ada Pula Beasley

Ada Pula Beasley is an Alyawarre artist born in 1959.

She is the sister of artist Michelle Holmes and the daughter of artist Jilly Holmes. Ada is very interested in preserving her culture and teaching the younger artists about country and bush medicines. Ada started painting with Artists of Ampilatwaja in 2012.

Most of the Ampilawatja artists paint Arreth, which translates to ‘strong bush medicine’, demonstrating a deep connection to country. A veritable source of life, the land has provided and sustained Alyawarr people for generations, as every plant and animal has a vital role to play within the ecological system. The paintings pay homage to the significance and use of traditional bush medicine, allowing an insight into their community. Yet underneath the iridescent surfaces, there is an underlying sense that there is more to these landscapes than meets the eye. In keeping with the religious laws, the artists reveal only a small amount of knowledge to the uninitiated.

4. Ada Pula Beasley, My Country 2020, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 61 cm MM4887 | $1600

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Ada Pula Beasley

Ada Pula Beasley is an Alyawarre artist born in 1959.

She is the sister of artist Michelle Holmes and the daughter of artist Jilly Holmes. Ada is very interested in preserving her culture and teaching the younger artists about country and bush medicines. Ada started painting with Artists of Ampilatwaja in 2012 Most of the Ampilawatja artists paint Arreth, which translates to ‘strong bush medicine’, demonstrating a deep connection to country. A veritable source of life, the land has provided and sustained Alyawarr people for generations, as every plant and animal has a vital role to play within the ecological system. The paintings pay homage to the significance and use of traditional bush medicine, allowing an insight into their community. Yet underneath the iridescent surfaces, there is an underlying sense that there is more to these landscapes than meets the eye. In keeping with the religious laws, the artists reveal only a small amount of knowledge to the uninitiated.

5. Ada Pula Beasley, My Country 2020, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 61 cm MM4888 | $1600

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Colleen Ngwarraye Morton

Born in 1957, Morton’s work pays homage to the significance and use of traditional bush medicine, allowing an insight into her community. One of the original artists of the Utopia batik movement of the 1980’s, Morton has been successfully painting ever since.

The subject matter of her art is often concerned with Grandfather’s country, the site of her family’s traditional hunting practice. As a child she was taught about the seasonal bush medicines and plants that grew there and how to gather them. The elders would teach the importance of looking after country and that the sacred ancestral spirits watch over and protect the animals and plants.

Her mother and grandmother taught her about bush medicine, a topic that is especially important to her, and is expressed within her paintings. The layers of Morton’s paintings are as detailed and complex as the stories she paints. They help to keep her culture strong and keep the stories alive to be shared and used to educate current and future generations. In 2017 her work was exhibited as part of the Florence Biennale, Italy.

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1. Ada Pula Beasley, My Country 2019, acrylic on canvas, 91 x 61 cm MM4874 | $1800

6. Colleen Ngwarraye Morton Bush Flowers 2018, acrylic on linen, 107 x 50 cm MM4616 | $1800

Jeannie BeasleyPula

Jeannie Beasley was born at Ali Curung in 1962 and now lives at Honeymoon Bore near Ampilatwatja. She learnt painting from observing her grandmother and aunts who were artists. Beasley’s artistic practice also included the famous Utopia school of batik, which she says she created collaboratively with her family, and working in traditional seed beads to make jewellery and mats.

Beasley’s subject matter is usually concerned with traditional bush medicine, bush tobacco and landscapes.

7. Jeannie Beasley Pula, View of Country 2019, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 61 cm MM4876 | $1600

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i 6. Colleen Ngwarraye Morton Bush Flowers 2018, acrylic on canvas, 107 x 50 cm MM4616 | $1750

Jeannie BeasleyPula

Born at Ali Curung in 1962, Jeannie Beasley’s subject matter is usually concerned with traditional bush medicine, bush tobacco and landscapes, featuring fields of colour such as in this patchwork quilt-like painting.

Beasley’s artistic practice was learnt from observing her grandmother and aunts who were artists, and also included the famous Utopia school of batik, which she says she created collaboratively with her family, and working in traditional seed beads to make jewellery and mats. In this joyous work she makes an patchwork pattern of treetops seen from an aerial perspective.

8. Jeannie Beasley Pula, Bush Medicine Plants 2020, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 61 cm MM4877 | $1600

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i 6. Colleen Ngwarraye Morton Bush Flowers 2018, acrylic on canvas, 107 x 50 cm MM4616 | $1750

Kathleen Nanima Rambler

I am originally from Barrow Creek and I’m married to Ricky Holmes a traditional owner of Ampilatwatja. I began painting at the Artists of Ampilatwatja in 2010. When I was younger I would often stay with an Aunty in Alice Springs who was a well-established artist there and as a teenager I would help her to paint her paintings. I also have a couple of Aunties in Utopia who were part of the Utopia Batik movement and I would watch them do batik as a child. I draw a lot of inspiration from my homeland and my childhood memories of Barrow Creek and the country surrounding there. My paintings are often reminiscing of hunting and camping trips, climbing the hills to get brilliant views and walking my land with my family. I like to paint my homeland, at Barrow Creek, because it as a way of connecting to and remembering my home.

9. Kathleen Nanima Rambler, My Fathers Country 2020, acrylic on linen, 91 x 61 cm MM4875 | $1800

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Born in 1972, Rambler’s dot work is exquisitely fine and she uses this technique to make patterns within the landscapes of her paintings demonstrating her peaceful, patient disposition and a deep love and connection to her country.

She tells of how she is inspired by landscapes, the ways the sky changes and how the light changes the colours of the land and the rocks. A veritable source of life, the land has provided and sustained Alyawarre people for generations, as every plant and animal has a vital role to play within the ecological system.

This profound understanding is interpreted in all Rambler’s paintings which feature also dramatic skies and birds and animals all but camouflaged amongst the flora.

Her work has been featured in major group exhibitions including Desert Mob, the 2019 NATSIAA Salon des Refuses and McCulloch and McCulloch’s 20/20: A Sense of Place, 2017.

MargaretKemarre Ross

Margaret Kemarre Ross’s painting style demonstrates a deep connection to her country. She was born in 1966 and paints with bright bold colours and a passion for wildflowers and bush medicine.

A strong and well-known artist in the community, Ross has a similar style to that of her mother, artist Rosie Ngwarraye Ross, who also likes to paint the native flowers and medicinal plants of Alyawarre country. Both mother and daughter enjoy painting together and expressing their love of country through their art.

10. Margaret Kemarre Ross Bush Flowers & Bush Medicine Plants 2019, acrylic on linen, 91 x 91 cm MM4878 | $2400

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Michelle Pula Holmes

Michelle Pula Holmes was born in 1968 and was part of the original Utopia Batik art movement during 1988, the entire collection purchased by the Robert Holmes Court Foundation. One of the region’s leading artists in 2013 she won the 30th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) People’s Choice.

Michelle’s family still traditionally hunt and gather, the love for her land, plants, flowers and trees inspire her paintings from season to season.

The basis of her paintings is ‘strong bush medicine’. Demonstrating a deep connection to her country, they are distinguished by their encapsulation of the vastness of scale of her lands combined with a detailed but fluid depiction of its many trees, plants and landforms – often shown from an aerial perspective.

11. Michelle Pula Holmes, My Country 2020, acrylic on linen, 107 x 76 cm MM4880 | $2400

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Michelle Pula Holmes

Michelle Pula Holmes was born in 1968 and was part of the original Utopia Batik art movement during 1988 - the entire collection purchased by the Robert Holmes Court Foundation. One of the region’s leading artists in 2013 she won the 30th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) People’s Choice.

Michelle’s family still traditionally hunt and gather, the love for her land, plants, flowers and trees inspire her paintings from season to season.

The basis of her paintings is ‘strong bush medicine’. Demonstrating a deep connection to her country, they are distinguished by their encapsulation of the vastness of scale of her lands combined with a detailed but fluid depiction of its many trees, plants and landforms – often shown from an aerial perspective.

12. Michelle Pula Holmes, My Country 2020, acrylic on linen, 61 x 61 cm MM4882 | $1400

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Michelle Pula Holmes

Michelle Pula Holmes was born in 1968 and was part of the original Utopia Batik art movement during 1988 - the entire collection purchased by the Robert Holmes Court Foundation. One of the region’s leading artists in 2013 she won the 30th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) People’s Choice.

Michelle’s family still traditionally hunt and gather, the love for her land, plants, flowers and trees inspire her paintings from season to season.

The basis of her stand out paintings is ‘strong bush medicine’. Demonstrating a deep connection to her country, they are distinguished by their encapsulation of the vastness of scale of her lands combined with a detailed but fluid depiction of its many trees, plants and landforms - often shown from an aerial perspective.

13. Michelle Pula Holmes, My Country 2020, acrylic on linen, 91 x 91 cm MM4883 | $2500

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Rosie Ngwarraye Ross

Rosie Ngwarreye Ross was born out bush in 1951 near Amaroo Station, in Alyawarr country. Her late mother was one of the original artists in the Utopia Batik movement.

Ross, who possesses a wonderful use of colour, especially likes to paint bush medicine and wild flowers from the surrounding areas.

Ross’s painting style demonstrates a deep connection to her country. She depicts the leaves and plants of wild medicine flowers against the earth in a bold, bright and striking palette.

14. Rosie Ngwarraye Ross, Sugarbag Dreaming 2020, acrylic on linen, 61 x 61 cm MM4879 | $1300

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Rosie Ngwarraye Ross

Rosie Ngwarreye Ross was born out bush in 1951 near Amaroo Station, in Alyawarr country.

Her late mother was one of the original artists in the Utopia Batik movement.

Ross, who possesses a wonderful use of colour, especially likes to paint bush medicine and wild flowers from the surrounding areas. Ross’s painting style demonstrates a deep connection to her country. She depicts the leaves and plants of wild medicine flowers against the earth in a bold, bright and striking palette.

She omits the sky from her composition, allowing the viewer’s eye to scan the landscape without a focal point, presenting two viewpoints of the country, combining an aerial and frontal view in the one composition. Ross’s daughter Margaret Kemarre Ross is also an artist and has inherited a similar style; bright, beautiful and expressive.

15. Rosie Ngwarraye Ross, Sugarbag Dreaming 2020, acrylic on linen, 61 x 61 cm MM4884 | $1400

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Sonya Ngwarraye Petrick

One of the younger generation of Ampilatwatja artists, Petrick was born 1982 and hails from the well-known Petrick family of the region. Petrick is a popular artist of Ampilatwatja, who says that she enjoys painting but her priority is her children, therefore she paints when time permits, making her paintings hard to come by. Her themes are landscapes of bush medicine plants and flowers in her custodian land and Bush plants. Petrick’s style is easily recognised through her use of vibrant palette choices of red, yellow, purple and orange and stylised trees and anthills. She has exhibited in many shows and is widely appreciated.

16. Sonya Ngwarraye Petrick, My View of Country 2019, acrylic on canvas, 61 x 61 cm MM4614 | $990

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EVERYWHEN Artspace specialises in contemporary Australian Aboriginal art featuring paintings, barks, ochres, ceramics, sculptures and works on paper from 40 + Aboriginal art centres from around Australia.

Directors Susan McCulloch OAM and Emily McCulloch Childs.

EVERYWHEN Artspace 39 Cook Street, Flinders VIC 3929 T: +61 3 5989 0496 E: info@mccullochandmcculloch.com.au mccullochandmcculloch.com.au