Colours of Spring

COLOURS OF SPRING

COLOURS OF SPRING

Text ©Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs Design ©Lisa Reidy Images ©The artists Published by Everywhen Artspace & Salt Contemporary Art September 2020

Front: Selina Teece Pwerle, Antarangeny – My Country, 91 x 60cm.

Left: Atipalku Intjalki, Tjukurpa Mulayangu 83 x 100cm

4

EXHIBITINGARTISTS

Ada Pula Beasley

Julie Yatjitja

Agnes Nampijinpa Brown

Justinna Napaljarri Sims

Anita Pumani

Kathleen Nanima Rambler

Atipalku Intjalki

Liyawaday Wirrpanda

Barbara Weir

Margaret Kemarre

Belinda Golder

Marshall Jangala Robertson

Bugai Whyoulter

Michelle Posssum Nungurrayi

Carol Young

Nora Wompi

Charmaine Pwerle

Owen Yalandja

Chris Japanangka Michaels

Patrick MungMung

David Brian

Raylene Walatinna

Debbie Napaljarri Brown

Rene Sundown

Emily Pwerle

Rosella Namok

Flora Nakamarra Brown

Rosie Ngwarraye Ross

Jack Nawilil

Selina Teece Pwerle

Janet Golder Kngwarrye

Shorty JangalaRobertson

Jeannie Mills Pwerle

Steven Jupurrula Nelson

Jill Kelly Kemarre

Vicki Cullinan

Joy Garlbin

Wukun Wanambi

TheColoursofSpring

The brilliant hues of spring burst into life in the wide-ranging Colours of Spring exhibition with more than 40 paintings, ochres, barks and sculptures from the central, western and eastern deserts, the APY Lands, Utopia, the Pilbara, Arnhem Land and Queensland celebrating this season of renewal and rebirth.

Rather than the four seasons that the western world revolves around, Aboriginal societies identify a far greater number of seasonal changes. These are based to a greater degree on the correlation between flora and fauna and weather changes and are typically more descriptive in nature. As for example – ‘the time when the acacia tree comes into flower’; ‘the time when the eels breed’; “the time when flowers bloom and bees collect pollen for honey’ and so forth.

Noting these regular occurrences, visits would be made to relevant areas within a society’s land to take advantage of the seasonal bounty. In a number of parts of Australia where traditional owners maintain land-based lives, the seasonal changes and the changes to flora and fauna they bring remain a significant part of daily life.

It is these more frequent and more specific seasonal changes that background a number of works in this exhibition, joined by a rich variety of contemporary, highly individual takes on ancient creation stories and works that represent Aboriginal people’s deep connections to their birthplace and country – its landforms, fauna and flora.

Susan McCulloch and Emily McCulloch Childs September 2020

6

7

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 fuchsia, river red gum, spinifex grass and the many varieties of bush flowers.

8

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

AgnesNampijinpaBrown Agnes Nampijinpa Brown Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) 2020, acrylic on linen, 122 x 76 cm MM4845 | $1900

Agnes Nampijinpa Brown is a Warlpiri artist from Yuendumu, 290 km north of Alice Springs. She was born in 1965 and has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists at Yuendumu since 2006. Brown paints her father’s jukurrpa stories (‘dreamings’: no English word exists to encapsulate this concept) relating directly to her land, its features and animals. Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) is one of the main Dreaming stories discussed in Brown’s art. The site depicted is Puyurru, west of Yuendumu. This is a Jukurrpa of a giant storm, with many aspects to the story, evidenced in geographical features of the land.

Puyurru is a place of usually dry creek beds with ‘mulju’ (soakages), naturally occurring wells. The ‘kirda’ (owners) for this site are Nangala/Nampijinpa women and Jangala/ Jampijinpa men.

10

This jukurrpa tells of two Jangala men, rainmakers, who sang the rain, unleashing a giant storm. This storm travelled across the country from the east to the west, across many sites, encountering many other Spirit Creator Beings, including the ‘Kurdukurdu Mangkurdu Jukurrpa’ (Children of the Clouds Dreaming), a ‘Kirrkarlanji’ (Brown Falcon [Falcoberigora]) and a giant ‘Warnayarra’ (Rainbow Serpent).

This Water Dreaming stopped at Puyurru, before travelling on before moving into Gurindji country to the north.

Anita Pumani Anita Pumani Maku Dreaming 2020, acrylic on linen, 122 x 82 cm MM4837 | $1800

Anita Pumani is an emerging and highly talented painter from Mimili in the APY Lands.

Her late great- aunt Kunmanara (Milatjari) Pumani was one of the most revered of Mimili’s founding artists. Pumani was born in 1982 at Indulkana near Mimili, and is the oldest daughter of Teresa Mula and Ken Pumani, both senior cultural leaders in Mimili.

Growing up with as one of a strong line of women, Anita proudly shares women’s stories in her paintings.

Pumani has also collaborated with her mother and her sisters on works of the Seven Sisters story, which is deeply engrained in her family line. Her work is largely concerned with representing the country and tjukurpa (dreaming stories and lore) of Antara - a large, beautiful Indigenous Protected Area, close to Mimili community.

12

Her subject matter of the sacred Maku (Witchetty Grubs) of Antara features the story of two ancestral women performing inma (ceremony) at a hill at Antara. Singing, they hit a rock with digging sticks causing many of these maku to come up from underground.

Today, when women from Mimili go out to Antara and sing inma, they collect numerous maku and other bush tucker.

In this work she depicts this story in a combination of a soft, gentle palette of pale pinks and yellows, with the stronger, more spiritually potent design elements in deep reds and oranges.

Atipalku Intjalki Atipalku Intjalki Tjukurrpa Mulayangu 2020, acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm MM4840 | $2,200

Atipalku Intjalki was born in 1955 at Pukatja (Ernabella) in the APY Lands, northern South Australia. She was a pioneering craft artist at Ernabella Arts, working in textiles, batik and works on paper.

More recently she has worked in ceramics and painting.

Her paintings depict the tjukurrpa (dreaming) site of Mulayangu, a sacred men’s site, made by the ancestor Mulayangu. Traditional Law forbids her from revealing any further information on this site, as it is held within the domain of men’s law.

14

We may however, safely discuss the beautiful use of soft colour of this work, recalling the otherworldly pastels of her country the Musgrave Ranges at twilight, when the land and sky turns a soft pink, blue, lavender and yellow. Intjalki’s mark making in the painting may refer to the petroglyphs found on their rocks nearby, ancient markings by ancestors indicating the significance of the place as a sacred freshwater site, a place of deep reverence and power, which must be treated sensitively and with immense respect.

Intjalki’s work is in the collections of AGSA, NGA, NGV, QAGOMA, and the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (NSW).

Atipalku Intjalki Atipalku Intjalki Tjukurrpa Mulayangu 2020, acrylic on canvas, 83 x 100 cm MM5025 | $1700

Atipalku Intjalki was born in 1955 at Pukatja (Ernabella) in the APY Lands, northern South Australia. She was a pioneering craft artist at Ernabella Arts, working in textiles, batik and works on paper.

More recently she has worked in ceramics and painting.

Her paintings depict the tjukurrpa (dreaming) site of Mulayangu, a sacred men’s site, made by the ancestor Mulayangu. Traditional Law forbids her from revealing any further information on this site, as it is held within the domain of men’s law.

16

We may however, safely discuss the beautiful use of soft colour of this work, recalling the otherworldly pastels of her country the Musgrave Ranges at twilight, when the land and sky turns a soft pink, blue, lavender and yellow. Intjalki’s mark making in the painting may refer to the petroglyphs found on their rocks nearby, ancient markings by ancestors indicating the significance of the place as a sacred freshwater site, a place of deep reverence and power, which must be treated sensitively and with immense respect.

Intjalki’s work is in the collections of AGSA, NGA, NGV, QAGOMA, and the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (NSW).

Barbara Weir Barbara Weir Awelye 2019, ochres & crystals on canvas, 90 x 180 cm MM4865 | $10,600

Born around 1945, Weir is a well-known artist from Utopia, NT. She had a close familial relationship with famed artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye and was one of the younger women of the Utopia batik school. Weir began her painting career in 1994 and has since become a highly popular and successful artist, travelling to exhibitions of her work held around Australia and internationally.

Weir’s paintings represent the once fertile lands of her mother’s (the late artist Minnie Pwerle) country at a time when plants, animals and water (including that considered sacred) were plentiful. Themes of her paintings include grass seed, bush berry, wildflowers and Awelye (women’s body design).

18

Recent works have seen Barbara incorporate different media including ochres, ash and crystal from her country in her paintings such that this expressionistic work of great texture and subtle power.

BelindaGolder

Belinda Golder Kngwarreye was born in 1986 and is an Anmatyerre speaker from the Utopia region of Central Australia, situated approximately 130km north-east of Alice Springs. Golder comes from a long line of significant and well-established artists. She is the daughter of Bessie Petyarre; her sister is Janet Golder Kngwarreye and both artists are the granddaughters of Polly Ngale. Her great aunts are artists Kathleen Ngale and Angelina Ngale.

In her depictions of bush plum and the plants of her country, she is following in the footsteps of these, and other highly regarded artists of the Kngwarreye family, especially Emily Kame Kngwarreye, and Kudditji Kngwarreye.

In this work she has depicted the changing colours of the bush plum as the fruits ripen. The bush plum or anwekety only fruits for a few weeks of the year. It can be eaten fresh or dried for use later and is an important source of Vitamin C for Utopia’s Anmatyerre people.

According to Anmatyerre belief, in the Dreaming, bush plum seeds were blown over the ancestral countries - landing to seed itself and bear fruit on Utopia lands.

20

Belinda Golder, Bush Plum 2019 acrylic on canvas, 122 x 91 cm MM4636 | $2200

Bugai Whyoulter Bugai Whyoulter Wantil 2019, acrylic on linen, 61 x 91 cm MM4737 | $2600

One of the strongest stars of Martumili art centre, located in the eastern Pilbara region of WA, Bugai Whyoulter has become one of Australia’s most highly prized contemporary artists.

She was born c.1940 at Pukayiyirna, present day Balfour Downs Station and travelled as a child with her parents northwards to Kunawarritji: also known as Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route. She started painting with the great founding Pilbara/Western Desert contemporary artists the late Nora Wompi and Eubena Nampitjin in the 1990s as a young woman.

In recent years her work has come to fruition, with several major public gallery exhibitions and a retrospective exhibition in 2019. She paints important sites in thick, luscious colour and seemingly abstract design, under which is hidden myriad knowledge of country and law.

22

This work depicts Wantili, a large round jurnu (soak) and lyinji (claypan) that lies close to Bugai’s birthplace. The area is dominated by claypans surrounded by tuwa (sandhills).

Following rain the typically dry claypans are filled with water, with the overflow from nearby waterholes flowing to Wantili. At that time, Wantili becomes an important place for obtaining fresh water, and is significant for the fact that at this site people would all come together for ceremonies. Manyjiwa (stones used by women for grinding seeds) from these times can still be found there today.

CarolYoung

Carol Young was born in 1972 in Alice Springs and grew up in the Pipalyatjara community, which is located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia.

The Anangu speak Pitjantjatjara as their first language.

Young’s mother’s homelands are in the far west; Warburton in Western Australia. A member of Ninuku Arts, an Anangu owned art centre based at Pipalyatjara and Kalka, and a traditional Aboriginal woman, Young is a custodian of Dreaming stories associated with her country and cosmology that has been passed through generations.

In addition to her painting practice, Young is also a talented basket weaver. She has strong connections and intimate knowledge of her culture, which is shares in her paintings, such as this work of Waru (Fire) Dreaming, concerning the site of Watarru.

Of this site Young says ‘there are many large and beautiful rocks. In these rocks lived the bush turkey. Anangu had no waru (fire) as the bush turkey stole the fire and ran all the way to the sea with it.’

24

Carol Young, Waru Dreaming 2019, acrylic on canvas, 101.6 x 76.2 cm MM4681 | $1900

Charmaine Pwerle

Charmaine Pwerle comes from an artistic dynasty from the wellknown art producing area known as Utopia, some 290 kms northeast of Alice Springs. An Anmatyerre woman born in 1976, her mother is famed painter Barbara Weir and her grandmother the equally famous Minnie Pwerle – the rights to whose stories she has inherited and which she paints.

Other famous women artist relatives include her great aunts Emily, Galya and Molly Pwerle and her extended family relatives Gloria Petyarre and the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, whom she knew as ‘Aunty Emily’.

Charmaine grew up on the Utopia homelands, in art studios with her family, learning about painting: colour, composition, and design. As a young adult, she worked as artist’s assistant and was a talented curator, working in galleries and being able to speak with authority on many aspects of Utopia art and artists.

A fully initiated woman, Charmaine lives at Irrultja on the Utopia lands. The large circular images in her paintings represents ceremonial sites, the linear design represents the tracks used when searching for food. The small circular designs are the seeds of the bush melon seed and the curvilinear shapes depict ‘Awelye’ or women’s ceremonial body-paint design.

26

Charmaine Pwerle Awelye 2018, acrylic on linen, 101 x 210cm MM4681 | $5900

Charmaine Pwerle Charmaine Pwerle Awelye 2020, acrylic on linen, 83 x 122 cm MM4681 | $3800

Charmaine Pwerle comes from an artistic dynasty from the wellknown art producing area known as Utopia, some 290 kms northeast of Alice Springs. An Anmatyerre woman born in 1976, her mother is famed painter Barbara Weir and her grandmother the equally famous Minnie Pwerle – the rights to whose stories she has inherited and which she paints.

Other famous women artist relatives include her great aunts Emily, Galya and Molly Pwerle and her extended family relatives Gloria Petyarre and the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, whom she knew as ‘Aunty Emily’.

Charmaine grew up on the Utopia homelands, in art studios with her family, learning about painting: colour, composition, and design. As a young adult, she worked as artist’s assistant and was a talented curator, working in galleries and being able to speak with authority on many aspects of Utopia art and artists.

A fully initiated woman, Charmaine lives at Irrultja on the Utopia lands. The large circular images in her paintings represents ceremonial sites, the linear design represents the tracks used when searching for food. The small circular designs are the seeds of the bush melon seed and the curvilinear shapes depict ‘Awelye’ or women’s ceremonial body-paint design.

28

Chris Japanangka Michaels Chris Japanangka Michaels Janganpa Jukurrpa (Brush Tail Possum Dreaming) – Mawurrji 2020, acylic on linen, 122 x 61 cm MM4991 | $1500

Chris Japanangka Michaels is a midgeneration artist from Yuendumu in the NT. One of his main painting themes is that of Janganpa Jukurrpa (common brush-tail possum dreaming) which travels all over Warlpiri country. Janganpa are nocturnal animals that often nest in the hollows of white gum trees (wapunungka).

This story comes from a big hill called Mawurrji, west of Yuendumu and north of Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs). A group of janganpa ancestors resided there. Every night they would go out in search of food. Their hunting trips took them to Wirlki and Wanapirdi, where they found pamapardu(flying ants).

They journeyed on to Ngarlkirdipini looking for water.

30

A Nampijinpa women was living at Mawurrji with her two daughters. She gave her daughters in marriage to a Jupurrurla janganpa but later decided to run away with them. The Jupurrurla angrily pursued the women, tracking them to Mawurrji where he killed them with a stone axe.

Their bodies are now rocks at this place. In this painting the brush tail possum man’s tracks are represented as ‘E’ shaped figures and the concentric circles depict the trees in which the janganpa live, and also the sites at Mawurrji.

Debbie Napaljarri Brown Debbie Napaljarri Brown Wanakij Jukurrpa (Bush Tomato Dreaming) 2020, acrylic on linen, 91 x 91cm MM5038 | $1800

Debbie Napaljarri Brown was born in Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal community 400 km northwest of Alice Springs. Brown began her artistic career with Warlukurlangu Artists, Yuendumu, in 2006.

Her grandfather was the renowned Pintupi artist Pegleg Tjampitjinpa (c. 1920-2006) who grew up in the vicinity of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay), living a traditional life. Browne would watch her grandmother, Margaret Napangardi Brown and grandfather paint and listen to her grandmother’s jukurrpa or dreaming stories.

This work concerns the Wanakiji Jukurrpa (bush tomato [Solanum chippendalei] Dreaming), which travels through Yaturlu (near Mount Theo, north of Yuendumu).

Wanakij grows in open spinifex country and is a small, prickly plant with purple flowers that bears edible green fleshy fruit with many small black seeds. The Wanakiji Jukurrpa

32

belongs to Napanangka/Napangardi women and Japanangka/Japangardi men. Brown references the topography of the landscape, home of this jukurrpa, from an aerial perspective that she adapts with dynamic artistic elements, using light and shade to evoke the layers of jukurrpa and knowledge of country and creation.

EmilyPwerle

Emily Pwerle’s country is Atnwengerrp and her language is Anmatyerre and Alyawarr. She is in her late 80s, possibly born in 1922 (no records exist) and lives in Irrultja, a tiny settlement in Utopia of about 100 people. She has had little exposure to western culture and only picked up a paintbrush for the first time in 2004.

Sister of the late Minnie Pwerle, Emily Pwerle’s extended family are all artists. She started painting professionally with her sisters Galya and Molly in collaboration with Minnie Pwerle. The sisters had an instant response to applying paint onto canvas, developing expressions of their dreamings that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Pwerle paints Awelye Atnwengerr, meaning women’s ceremony, which is depicted by a series of lines and symbols, often crisscrossed patterns that are layered across the canvas. The patterns represent the designs painted on women’s bodies during bush tucker ceremonies in Atnwengerrp.

Her breast designs may superficially remind one of Minnie Pwerle’s well-known paintings, yet Emily Pwerle’s are different again. In her works the body painting designs are dense, as though they were about to break from their rectangular restraints and explode forth in a riot of colour and pattern.

34

Emily Pwerle Awelye 2017, acrylic on linen, 152 x 92 cm MM2796 | $4200

Flora Nakamarra Brown Flora Nakamarra Brown Mina Mina Jukurrpa 2020, acrylic on linen, 107 x 107 cm MM 4996 | $2800

Flora Nakamarra Brown was born in 1963 in Yuendumu, an Aboriginal community in the Western Desert, NT. Both her parents were well-known Warlpiri artists; she is also kin to Joy Nangala Brown, also a major Warlpiri artist. Flora grew up in Yuendumu and is married to artist Marshall Poulson. She now lives in Nyirripi, 130 km west of Yuendumu.

She began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, in 2017.

This subject of this work is her central theme: her mother’s Mina Mina Jukurrpa (Mina Mina Dreaming – Ngalyipi) – a very important women’s dreaming site west of Yuendumu and Nyirripi, near Lake Mackay and the WA border. The Mina Mina Jukurrpa tells the story of a group of ancestral ‘karnta’ (women) who traveled from west to east. In the Dreamtime, these ancestral women danced at Mina Mina and ‘karlangu’ (digging sticks) rose up out of the ground before undertaking extensive journey throughout Warlpiri lands.

36

A number of early, now famous renditions of Mina Mina feature a monochrome palette.

Flora’s work, with its shades of browns and blues shows an artistic evolution from this palette while its rhythmic, geometric design is consistent with the best known art of the Mina Mina oeuvre.

Janet Golder Kngwarrye

Janet Golder Kngwarreye is an Anmatyerre artist from Mulga Bore on the Utopia Homelands.

The artistic line in her family runs deep. Her grandmothers are esteemed Utopia artists Polly Ngale and Angelina Pwerle, her uncle is Greeny Purvis and her sister Belinda Golder Kngwarreye is also an accomplished artist. Golder began painting in 1987, learning her skills from family members and taking on the subject matter that was familiar to the women artists in her family group.

These include the Awelye Women’s Ceremonial Body Paint and the Bush Yam Leaf designs and stories, as well as Bush Medicine and Mountain Devil Dreaming.

In recent times Janet has developed further stories based around the women’s cultural practice on Country, combining imagery of bush tucker along with features of the Utopia landscape. Golder is highly skilled in her use of colour with her paintings often fusing black and white design with colour elements.

38

Janet Golder Kngwarrye My Country 2020, acrylic on canvas, 198 x 87 cm MM5015 | $3400

Jeannie Mills Pwerle Jeannie Mills Pwerle Yam Dreaming acrylic on canvas, 91 x 76cm MM4870 | $1300

Jeannie Mills Pwerle, born in 1965, is an artist from Utopia, about 230km north east of Alice Springs. Here she lives a traditional life at her homelands of Irrwelty and Atnwengerrp. She is involved in educating and encouraging other women to participate in art and culture.

Mills is also a ngangker (traditional healer or doctor) providing applications to her community.

Artistically, she has become well-recognised for her highly popular, unique interpretations of Anaty (desert yam or bush potato) Dreaming story.

Mills’ late aunt was Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Australia’s most prized female artist.

Kngwarreye had as her principal Dreaming the anwerlarr (pencil yam) which was associated with her birthplace, Alhalker.

40

Likewise, Mills’s enduring subject matter is her Dreaming of Anaty (Bush Potato/Yam pronounced ‘ung-kiy-yah’, Ipomoea costata) story from her father’s country, Irrweltye. This yam grows underground with its viny shrub growing above ground up to one metre high.

It is normally found on spinifex sand plains and produces large pink flowers after summer rain. The anaty is a tuber, or swollen root, of the shrub and tastes much like the common sweet potato.

Mill’s contemporary interpretation depicts the seed of the anaty (dot work), the anaty and its flower (brush work).

Jill Kelly Kemarre

Jill Kelly Kemarre was born in 1959. An Alyawarr woman, she also speaks Eastern Arrernte and English. Her father’s county is Irrwelty located on Alyawarr land north of the Utopia region of Central Australia. She currently lives with her husband and family at Irrerlirri Outstation in the Arltarlpilta region, 250kms north east of Alice Springs in the beautiful Harts Range.

Kelly has been painting for about 18 years. She also worked for Delmore Downs station and the art centre in Amperlatwaty (Ampilatwatja) north of the Utopia region as well as at the community art centre in Atitjere.

Her paintings represent elements associated with the stories from her traditional country.

They include Arnwekety – Conkerberry, Lyaw Ntange – Seeds from the Munyeroo herb and Awely – women’s ceremony as well as the subject of this painting which depicts the spinifex plants in her country during the traditional burning period, conducted regularly to ensure renewal of indigenous flora.

42

Jill Kelly Kemarre, Burning Country – Fire Dreaming 2018, acrylic on linen, 100 x 150cm MM4853 | $2900

Julie Yatjitja Julie Yatjitja Iwantja Tjukitji (Iwantja Soakage) 2020, acrylic on linen, 122 x 152cm MM4969 | $3200

Julie Yatjitja is a Yankunytjatjara woman from Indulkana in the APY Lands of SA. Julie was born in 1969 in the cool waters of the Iwantja creek next to the large Iwantja soakage around which the community was founded in the 1960s. The area is shaded by large gum trees, and the banks of the creek nestle close to large boulders. As a child she and her family lived there in a hand-built wiltja (shelter).

Julie started painting around 2016, and from her first works she was recognised as a significant talent. Her paintings shimmer with an exuberant energy as she captures the intensity and power of her country, its many rockholes, traveling lines and water sites especially that of her birthplace - the Iwantja creek and adjoining soakage and which holds the story of the Tjurki (native owl) that looks over her people.

44

Julie’s work is becoming increasingly exhibited by leading galleries around Australia and highly sought after by collectors and art enthusiasts alike.

Justinna NapaljarriSims Justinna Napaljarri Sims Yanjirlpirri or Napaljarri-Warnu Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming) 2020, acrylic on linen, 152 x 76cm MM5019 | $2600

Justinna Napaljarri Sims was born in 1977 in Alice Springs and lives at Yuendumu, 290 km north-west of Alice Springs. She is the daughter of senior artist Elsie Napanangka Granites, and the grand-daughter of the late Paddy Japaljarri Sims, one of the founding artists of Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu.

Justinna has been painting since 2019 and has become well known for her depictions of the Seven Sisters story.

The Napaljarri-Warnu Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming) depicts the story of the seven ancestral Napaljarri sisters who are found in the night sky today in the cluster of seven stars in the constellation Taurus, more commonly known as the Pleiades. Yanjirlpirri Jukurrpa (Star Dreaming) tells of the journey of men who travelled westwards. The site depicted is Yanjirlypiri (star) where there is a low hill and a water soakage. The importance of this place cannot be overemphasized.

46

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

Born at Barrow Creek, NT in 1972, as a child Kathleen Rambler would paint with her several of her aunts who were well known painters in Alice Springs and Utopia. She started painting in her own right in 2010.

Kathleen’s dot work is exquisitely fine and she uses this technique to make patterns within the landscapes of her paintings and 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 Alyawarra 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.

48

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

Liyawaday Wirrpanda Liyawaday Wirrpanda Yalata 2018, ochres on bark, 67 x 156cm MM3951 | $4300

Born c.1973, Liyawaday is the granddaughter of the famous East Arnhem Land artist Narritjin Maymuru and the third wife of Djambawa Marawili. She has assisted her father, mother and husband on paintings.

From the 1990s she has produced work in her own right drawing on her own Dhudi Djapu clan designs which her father shared with her.

Liyawaday is relating the activities of Mäna the shark and the three sisters (Djan’kawu) creator beings who created the sacred freshwater, spring-fed waterholes by plunging their sacred digging sticks in the ground.

Freshwater sprang from these wells as did a sacred goanna (a manifestation of the Djan’kawu themselves).

This work depicts early events during Ancestral (and present) time at Yalata – a coastal fringe area. During the wet season this tidal plain is flooded by the rains with the tidal surge creating areas of brackish water.

During the dry season the grass and black earth dry out. Then the fires come, turning a swamp into a huge plain of cracked black earth. Freshwater springs dot this sun baked plain forming small islands of vegetation and as Rarrandada (the hot time) builds the thirsty wayin (birds) such as dhangultji (brolgas) and gurrumanji (magpie geese) come to these sacred springs in their thousands.

Story has it that, on surfacing, the goanna saw the first sun rise. Also on the wet clays around the wells the goanna observed the footprints of Dangultji the Brolga – the prints of the Brolga passing from spring to spring are an echo and a present day manifestation of the Sisters who adopted the form of the brolga in their travels between springs – portrayed here by the roundels in the painting

50

Margaret Kemarre Ross Margaret Kemarre Ross Bush Flowers & Bush Medicine Plants 2020, acrylic on linen, 91 x 91cm MM4878 | $2400

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.

52

Marshall Jangala Robertson

Marshall Jangala Robertson is a Warlpiri speaker born in 1974 in Darwin and raised at Lajamanu in the NT. Both his parents were well known painters from Lajamanu. He moved to the Warlpiri community of Yuendumu on his marriage to fellow artist Justinna Napaljarri Sims.

He is known for his effective use of black and white to relate the story of a Jangala watiya-warnu) ancestor who travelled south from a small hill called Ngurlupurranyangu to Yamunturrngu (Mount Liebig). As he traveled he picked the seeds of the wattle - watiya-warnu (Acacia Tenuissima) and placed them in parrajas (food carriers), one of which he carried on his head. When people returned to their camp after collecting the seeds they would make large windbreaks for shelter and winnow the seed in the late afternoon. Immature watiya-warnu seed is ground into a paste and can be used to treat upset stomachs The associated watiya-warnu ceremony involves the preparation of a large ground painting. This Jukurrpa belongs to Nampijinpa/Nangala women and Jampijinpa/Janagala men. In paintings of this Dreaming ‘U’ shapes are often depicting women collecting the watiya-warnu seeds. Oval shapes represent the parrajas where they carry the seeds and strait lines beside them frequently portray digging sticks.

54

Marshall Jangala Robertson Watiya-warnu (Seed Dreaming) 2020, acrylic on linen, 183 x 91cm MM5020 | $3500

MichellePosssumNungurrayi

Michelle Possum Nungurrayi is an Anmatyerre artist born in 1970 at Mt Allan, NT. She is the youngest daughter of the famous Papunya artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and sister to Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi. A highly talented artist, Michelle paints Women’s Dreamings of her homelands in a vibrant and dynamic style.

These include stories from Yuelamu her home country of Mt Allan, and are often aerial maps of her country, describing the various important sites she knows well. The traditional and semi figurative iconography she inherited from her father features strongly in her works. She also paints the seven sisters, bush tucker stories including bush coconut, seed, and exploding seed dreamings, fire dreamings, worm dreamings, goanna dreaming, and grandmother’s country – many of which she works together in a riot of complex interwoven design.

Michelle’s work has been widely exhibited and collected throughout Australia.

56

Michelle Posssum Nungurrayi Grandmother’s Country & Women’s Ceremony 2018, acrylic on linen, 200 x 99cm MM4685 | $6800

NoraWompi Nora Wompi Kunawarritji 2018, acrylic on linen, 120 x 80cm MM4249 | $4900

One of the great founding artists of the Pilbara school of Aboriginal art Nora Wompi Nungurrayi was born c. 1935 near Kunawarritji or Well 33 on the Canning Stock Route. She became famous for painting this country and its significance to the Minyipuru Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming).

As a young woman Wompi followed the drovers of the Canning Stock Route north to Balgo Mission. There she learnt to paint in the late 1980s with her close friend, Eubena Nampitjin. She returned to Kunawarritji when it became a community in its own right in the 1990s and where she lived until her death in 2017. Wompi’s evocative renditions of her place were aptly described by writer Nicolas Rothwell in The Australian in a 2009 as “seeming at once to conjure up the essence of a mythic world: its colours, which clash, then harmonise, hint at a set of shapes, a way of seeing country X-rayed, a way of linking place and memory.”

58

White overlaying colours underneath, such as in this evocative painting of her birth place, was a favoured palette and reminiscent of the glistening salt pans of her country.

Her work has featured in numerous major public gallery exhibitions including the ground-breaking Canning Stock Route exhibition, NMA, is represented in the collections of most of Australia’s public galleries as well as numerous leading private collections and increasingly rare to find on the primary market.

Patrick MungMung Patrick Mung Mung Purnululu Way 2019, natural ochre & pigment on canvas , 120 x 120cm MM4751 | $10,900

A senior Gija artist from Warmun in the East Kimberley, Patrick Mung Mung was born at Yunurrel (Spring Creek) in 1944. He worked as a stockman for many years on stations in the East Kimberley before starting painting in 1991 - later becoming instrumental in establishing the community-owned art centre at Warmun in 1998. Now one of Warmun’s most important senior artists he is a revered elder law and culture man in the community.

Like his late father, George Mung Mung, Patrick is a strong cross cultural communicator.

Mung Mung’s work is influenced by the previous generation of Warmun artists, which include Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji.

His knowledge of his country and his cultural memory of family are powerful influences on his art.

60

Painting with a palette of soft and hard natural pigments that he extracts locally, he depicts the country of his birthplace (Yunurrel) and sites such as the subject of this paining, the famed Boornoolooloo (Purnululu or Bungle Bungles) amongst whose hilly terrain and deep rockhole he describes his forebears living ‘as though in a village.’

Raylene Walatinna Raylene Walatinna Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) 2019, acrylic on linen, 122 x 152cm MM4691 | $2900

Raylene Walatinna is a younger generation artist from the APY Lands of South Australia.

Her work features the tjukula or rockholes of her country. Tjukula are hollows and cavities found within some large boulders and rock formations across the deserts and which collect pools of clean drinking water after heavy rain. Some hold small amounts and others are the size of large ponds and are looked after and protected by Anangu (Aboriginal people of the area). In paintings, tjukula are often depicted by concentric circles with interconnected lines depicting creeks and underground springs.

Raylene’s distinctive paintings are gaining attention in leading galleries around Australia for their confident depiction of both the rockholes and the surrounding country in map-like pathways and tracks leading either to the rockhole site or the surrounding mountains and rocks.

62

Rene Sundown Rene Sundown Amarouna 2019, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 152cm MM4641 | $2900

Rene is a Yangkunyatjtatjara woman born in 1952 in the bush near Uluru. She travelled with her family throughout the APY Lands of SA as a child and developed a deep and abiding knowledge of its important sites and geography. It is these she depicts in her paintings - often preferring a soft palette reminiscent of the sandy soils and soft light of her country.

64

RosellaNamok

Rosella started making art as a teenager and she shot to fame in 1999 with a sell-out show at Hogarth Galleries, Sydney. By 22 she had been rated among Australia’s 50 most collectable artists by Australian Art Collector. Since, her work has been acquired by most major public galleries, she has received numerous significant commissions and her work has been widely exhibited by leading private and public galleries around Australia and internationally.

Some of her works represent family relationships depicted in symbolic form by ovals and rectangles, while others feature her country’s landscape and weather patterns.

A favoured theme is the subject of this work - rain falling over the wide expanse of the Coral Sea. She keenly observes this panoramic vista from her beachside home, capturing the soft intensity of the tropical rain, especially the phenomenon known as serein (rain falling from a cloudless sky at dusk) as well as the constantly changing hues of sky, clouds and water.

66

Rosella Namok, Stinging Rain...Mornging Time 2019, acrylic on canvas 102 x 172cm MM4784 | $8500

Rosie Ngwarraye ROSS Rosie Ngwarraye Ross Sugarbag Dreaming 2020 acrylic on cotton 61 x 61 cm MM4879 | $1300

Born in 1951, out bush near Amaroo Station, in Alyawarr country of the Northern Territory, Rosie Ngwarreye Ross’s mother was one of the original artists in the Utopian Batik movement of the late 1980s. Now living at the community of Ampilatjwatja, Rosie’s painting style demonstrates a deep connection to her country – showing bushes and wild medicine flowers brightly painted onto its earth.

Artists from Ampilatwatja often omit the sky from their compositions, allowing the viewer’s eye to scan the landscape without a focal point and combining an aerial and frontal view in the one composition.

Rosie possesses a wonderful use of colour and especially likes to paint bush medicine and wildflowers from the surrounding areas.

Her daughter Margaret Kemarre Ross is also an artist and has inherited a similar bright, beautiful and expressive style.

68

SelinaTeecePwerle Selina Teece Pwerle Antarengeny – My country 2020, acrylic on linen 91 x 61cm MM4973 | $2900

Selina Teece Pwerle was born in 1977 in her traditional country of Antarrengeny, which lies in Alyawarr country north of the Utopia region approximately 240 km north east of Alice Springs. Selina’s mother Lulu Teece is a painter and Selina developed her own artistic talents at a very young age.

The theme of her paintings are the stories of her father’s country Antarrengeny in which she depicts in a number of styles - varying from patterns of intricate dots when illustrating a landscape of her country, bold linear work when representing body paint design as well as the leaves and flowers of her country and its expansive landscape and light.

Interest in Selina’s work has been steadily increasing and she has been represented in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally since 2001.

70

SelinaTeecePwerle Selina Teece Pwerle Antarengeny – My country 2020 acrylic on linen 100 x 70cm MM4974 | $2900

Selina Teece Pwerle was born in 1977 in her traditional country of Antarrengeny, which lies in Alyawarr country north of the Utopia region approximately 240 km north east of Alice Springs. Selina’s mother Lulu Teece is a painter and Selina developed her own artistic talents at a very young age.

The theme of her paintings are the stories of her father’s country Antarrengeny in which she depicts in a number of styles - varying from patterns of intricate dots when illustrating a landscape of her country, bold linear work when representing body paint design as well as the leaves and flowers of her country and its expansive landscape and light.

Interest in Selina’s work has been steadily increasing and she has been represented in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally since 2001.

72

Shorty Jangala Robertson Shorty Jangala Robertson Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) – Puyurru 2009, acrylic on linen, 152 x 152cm MM3900 | $8,900

The great contemporary ‘rain dreaming’ painter, Shorty Jangala Robertson was born in the early 1930s at Chilla Well - a large soakage and claypan north-west of Yuendumu in the NT. He lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle with his family and his younger working life was full of adventure and hard work for different enterprises in the Alice Springs/ Yuendumu area. He settled at Yuendumu in 1967 and came to painting in the 1990s - his fresh and vigorous canvases an immediate hit.

Best known are his lyrical depictions of the Ngapa (Water) dreaming story such as this work of unique clarity and resolved colours.

This epic dreaming story focuses on the dramatic journeys of two ancestral men as they ‘sang’ the rain, unleashing a giant storm that travelled across the country accompanied by thunder and lightning.

74

This storm joined with another and was eventually picked up by an ancestral falcon which subsequently ‘dropped’ it further west, thereby creating a huge lake. The lines in the painting represent the ‘ngawarra’ (flood waters) running through the lands and the small circles at top and bottom, the ‘mulju’ (water soakages). The short bars depict ‘mangkurdu’ (cumulus & stratocumulus clouds).

Widely acclaimed and much exhibited throughout Australia and internationally with many of his works in public and leading private collections, Shorty Jangala Robertson passed away in 2014. His work is now rare on the primary art market.

StevenJupurrula Nelson Steven Jupurrula Nelson Janganpa Jukurrpa Jukurrpa Brush Tail Possum dreaming) 2020, acrylic on linen, 107 x 107cm MM5043 | $3600

Steven Jupurrula Nelson is one of the most individual of Western Desert artists. Born in 1978 he has lived at Yuendumu, 290k north west of Alice Springs all his life although his traditional country is about 170k to the west around the community of Nyirrpi.

Both his parents were painters and Steven worked at his art centre, Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu for some time before he himself started painting in 2014.

His main painting theme is Janganpa Jukurrpa (brush-tail possum Dreaming) from his mother’s side. Janganpa Jukurrpa travels all over Warlpiri country and relates the nocturnal journeys of the possums as they look for food, as well as the ancestral creation stories that relate to both them and their countries.

76

Steven’s abstract expressionist works, his brilliant use of colour and highly individualistic style have led to his work becoming highly sought after by collectors and art enthusiasts Australia-wide.

Vicki Cullinan Vicki Cullinan Munga Ilkari (Night Sky) 2019, acrylic on linen, 91 x 122 cm MM4191 | $2500

Vicki Cullinan is a Yankunytjatjara woman from Indulkana on the APY Lands, SA. She was born in 1970 and started painting around 2013. Her works since have featured depictions of the night sky.

Jewelled with repetitive layering of an explosive smattering of considered dots, the surface of the canvas becomes a complex landscape and depict the night sky as a reflection of what is living and flourishing in abundance on the land below.

She says: “At night in the desert, when I look to the sky – heavy with stars, I feel at my most calm. The sky is the largest presence watching these lands. It holds all our ancestral stories from a long time ago. It watches every day what happens in our community; the chaos, the beauty, the hard times, the laughter. The sky sees and knows everything. It holds all this energy and reflects back on us at night, it is forever and it is still.”

78

Vicki’s works have been exhibited in leading galleries around Australia, including TARNANTHI, AGSA, and Salon des Refusés, Darwin. In 2018 one of her works was projected onto the front of Parliament House as part of Canberra’s Illuminate Festival.

Wukun Wanambi Wukun Wanambi Bamurrunju 2018, ochres on bark, 46 x 116cm MM3350 | $6400

Born in 1962 award winning East Arnhem Land artist Wukun Wanambi has carved out a place as one of Australia’s most notable contemporary bark artists.

For some years the main theme of his art has been the traditional story of the mullet which he portrays as an allegory for both human existence and the destiny of all things.

Of these intricately detailed and mesmerising white ochre bark paintings he says: ‘Mullet travelled from river to river, ocean to ocean, looking for their destiny. This is at Gurka’wuy. They also travelled to other various communities. We sing a song, and dance as well, to carry the tide of Gurka’wuy water, bringing the guya (fish) into the river, to Trial Bay... they are looking for their destiny, just like you and me tracing our family tree on a computer, looking for our great, great grandfathers and grandmothers.”

80

Wukun’s work has been exhibited in leading galleries around Australia, in the UK, the US and Europe. His work is represented in numerous public collections and awards he has won since 1998 include Best Bark and two Wandjuk Marika Awards for 3D at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards in Darwin.

Maningrida Arts&Culture Fibre, ochre and wood sculptures by three leading artists

82

Jack Nawilil L to R: Ceremonial object relating to food, 2018, Kurrajong with ochre pigment, 144 x 7 x 7cm, MM4929 | $2900 Ngakorljek Gorlng (pine tree), 2019, paperbark, natural fibres and ochre, 165 x 8 x7cm, MM4921 | $5200 Women Spirit Pole, 2018, paperbark, natural fibres and ochre, 169 x 7 x 7cm, MM4911 | $3200

Award-winning artist Jack Nawilil was born in 1945 and is a senior cultural leader, songman and artist at Maningrida. He has exhibited throughout Australia and internationally since 1989 and his works are in the collections of the NGV, MCA, QAG, MAGNT and several leading international collections.

The most extraordinary of his works are his unique renditions of traditional spirit poles. The only artist to make these sculptures, he was awarded the 2012 Wandjuk Marika 3D Award at the Telstra NATSIAAs in Darwin for a work similar to those shown here. Made traditionally for ceremonial usage, each carries a specific story which he represents in his own design.

The black and white work to the left represents the tuber of a plant which is edible but is also part of sacred law called Mardayin and the ceremony that reinforces that law.

84

The central work relates the journeys of ancestral heroes of Western Arnhem land who set out from the east. With its feathered strings, it is reminiscent of Elcho Island’s Morning Star Poles, however Jack stresses that it is distinctly different to these ceremonial objects. “This design belongs to me...I made it and it is different [to the Morning Star poles]. The ancestral spirit is in there. It is my totemic emblem - my ancestral design.”

To the right the Women’s Spirit Pole is also from Elcho Island and represents the spirit of a female ancestral creator who travelled west from Elcho Island and the types of food she carried. Jack says that while the story is secret, his interpretation through use of his clan design has made it secular.

OwenYalandja Owen Yalandja Yawkyawk 2020, Cottonwood with ochre, 157 x 7 x 9cm MM4926 | $5300

Owen Yaladja was born in 1961 and is the most senior carver and custodian of an important yawkyawk site. He learnt carving from his father, the late Crusoe Kuningbal who invented representing the Mimih and Yawkyawk spirit figures in sculptural form.

Owen lives alongside a major billabong site for Yawkyawk or young spirit girls. It is believed they live in this billabong and their shadows can occasionally be seen to humans who approach. These girls transformed into mermaid-like figures with fish tails.

Yalandja and his brother the Crusoe Kurddal followed their father’s legacy but over the years have found their own distinct styles.

In the early 1990s Yalandja experimented with the patterns of dots taught to him by his father and created new arrangements; first in arcs to suggest scales, and later he developed small v- shaped marks to suggest individual scales.’ He works exclusively with

86

the kurrajong tree and carefully selects trunks which can be thin and curvilinear to give his figures a sinuous appearance. As he says, “I make it [yawkyawk] according to my individual ideas..., no one else does them like this.”

Yalandja’s work is represented in major international and national collections and exibited globally including at AGNSW, NGA, Melbourne Museum, Venice Bienale, Biennale of Sydney and the National Australian Indigenous Triennial.

BALANG DAVID BRIAN L to R: Mako (didgeridu), 2019, Earth pigments on stringybark, 135 x 6 x 9cm, MM4913 | $1400 Mako (didgeridu), 2019, Earth pigments on stringybark, 144x 8.5 x 8.5 cm, MM4912 | $1400 Mako (didgeridu), 2019, Earth pigments on stringybark, 135 x 6 x 9cm, MM4915 | $1400

Balang David Brian was born in 1973 and is the son of two famous Maningrida artists Godjan Lena Yarinkura and Kamarrang Bob Burruwal. He specialises in mako (didjeridu) and more recently bark painting. Common motifs in his works include yok (bandicoot), man-ngalinj (bush potato), quicksand at Kinoedjanga, barlangu (shark) and wankurr (sacred dilly bag)

groups give it different names. These include mako [mago], liddung, djalubbu, ngorla, morlo, wuyimbarl, ngunebobanja, mudburuja and morle. People of the rocky escarpment country of western Arnhem Land say that humans were taught to play the didjeridu by the slender Mimih spirit beings who live among the dark caves and crevices of the stone country.

The ‘didgeridoo’ originated in East and Central Arnhem Land. Images of Aboriginal people from those regions playing the instrument date back 1500 years. While traditional to those areas, its usage has spread to Aboriginal people in many other regions.

No Aboriginal name resembles the common Western name of ‘didgeridoo/u’ which appears to have originated in the early 1900s

by Western writers attempting to describe it by the sound it makes when played.

Didgeridu are made in the same way as ceremonial hollow log coffins -- by termites eating out the trunks of trees that have died. In Maningrida ithe didjeridu remains primarily an instrument that accompanies public ceremony such as those of diplomacy (exchange), funerals and some mortuary rituals. It is generally not used as a solo instrument, nor for the most secret and sacred ceremonies. The manner of playing provides an instant recognition of both language and regional affiliations and the decoration applied can also indicate its intended use.

Known as yidaki in Eastern Arnhem Land, in the Maningrida area different language 88

Colours of Spring

October 2-26, 2020

Curated by Everywhen Artspace Salt Contemporary Art

33-35 Hesse Street, Queenscliff VIC 3225 salt-art.com.au