Visions of the Kimberley – Art, place, culture, lore

01 November - 30 November 2023

 

Paddy Carlton
Queenie McKenzie
Helicopter Joe Tjungurrayi
Elizabeth Nyumi
Rammey Ramsey
Rusty Peters
Gordon Barney
Eubena Nampitjin

 

Exhibition Catalogue

 

This selection of works is drawn from the remote regions of East Kimberley and Great Sandy Desert. Nomad Art presents eight distinguished artists each renowned for dynamic contemporary expression of their country, culture and lore.

 

The Kimberley is a vast and spectacular region located north of the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts. Aboriginal people have been living on these ancient lands for thousands of years and are deeply connected to Country.

 

Warmun artists from Turkey Creek are renowned for images in natural ochres, which are integral to the contemporary expression of the Gija people. These etchings draw upon traditional Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) stories and contemporary life.

 

Senior artist Gordon Barney painted his country Birnoowoo, around Alice Downs Station, where he worked as a stockman and where his family would often camp. Gordon’s paintings are distinct in their use of line and empty space, to depict the hills in his country. This etching depicts a creek that runs through his Country, Birnoo. As he walked across this land with family there was always an abundance of bush food for everyone.

 

Rusty Peters is a senior Gija man of Joowoorroo skin, his detailed knowledge of the land and stories from Springvale and neighbouring Moola Boola stations is reflected in distinctive paintings in traditional red and yellow ochres and black charcoal. While recognisably part of the ‘Warmun’ style the intricate curves mapping Country and the dark caves and rivers in his images are particular to Rusty’s work.

 

The works by Rammey Ramsey relate to the flat country in the area near Elgee Cliffs, south of Bedford Downs, which has the same Gija name as the artist, Warlawoon. His artworks show the places where Rock Wallabies live as well as camping areas near waterholes. Images of cliffs, hills, riverbeds, rocks, waterholes, roads, stockyards and meeting places appear as distillations of important features of the landscape.

 

Mingmarriya/Gara Garag (Queenie McKenzie) was a pioneer of the Kimberley art movement, an established painter, and a respected custodian of the local Gija customs and lore. Her art represents powerful landscapes and important stories of her Country.

 

Paddy Carlton was a senior elder and law man in his community and across the Kimberley region. His paintings reflect the richness of his culture and the love of his traditional country. Paddy was the key artist and mentor for Waringarri Arts.

 

Warlayirti Artists is located in the community of Wirrimanu (Balgo) in the southeast Kimberley, on the edge of the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts. These artists have a reputation for vibrant colour, bold brush-strokes and distinctly individual art works which have strong connections to their country through traditional nomad life along waterholes and soaks of the Canning Stock route.

 

Esteemed law woman and senior artist, Eubena Nampitjin was renowned for her spontaneity and strength of brush mark that carved the paint, leaving rhythmical tracks across the canvas. Her work resonates with the power of place and intimate knowledge of country. Art was like her second language, and she created with passion and dedication, weaving stories from the Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) as well as her personal history and knowledge of her traditional country, southwest of Balgo in the Great Sandy Desert and along the middle stretches of the Canning Stock Route.

 

Helicopter Joe Tjungurrayi’s approach and dedication to the act of painting is evidence of the reverence which he holds for his country. Helicopter was brought up in a traditional nomadic lifestyle, learning from childhood the location of water sources and how to hunt for bush food. Since 1994 Helicopter has been painting in his own distinctive linear style that emanates from the central feature of a soak water.

 

Elizabeth Nyumi’s country is in the Great Sandy Desert, west of Kiwirrkurra, and dominated by tali (sand hills). Her paintings of Parwalla depicts a large swampy area, which fills with water after the wet season rain and consequently produces an abundance of bush foods. The majority of Nyumi’s print shows the different bush foods, women, shown as the U shapes, with their wana (digging sticks) and coolamons gathering the foods and whitish colours representing the spinifex.

 

See works from Waringarri Arts

See works from Warlayirti Artists

Tiwi Editions – New collagraphs from Milikapiti

01 October - 29 October 2023

View works on the online gallery

 

Nomad art is proud to present a new body of limited edition collagraphs from Jilamara Arts and Crafts on the Tiwi islands. The collection features work by Michelle Woody Minnapinni, Timothy Cook, Conrad Kamilowra Tipungwuti, Raelene Lampuwatu Kerinauia and Janice Pungautiji Murray among others. The prints were produced during a workshop with master printmaker Basil Hall in 2023.

 

Tiwi art is a powerful and unique expression which is drawn from the language, ceremonies, and material culture of the Tiwi people. Tiwi art is often inspired by two significant ceremonial rituals, Pukumani (mourning ceremony) and Kulama (initiation or yam ceremony) which echo Tiwi cosmology and mythology. Painted designs are based on patterns of lines and dots derived from the body paintings for these rituals, however emphasis is also placed on innovation and individuality rather than associations with totemic groups or kinship systems. The result is powerful and individual imagery created with natural pigments. The Tiwi are extraordinary exponents of this convergence of freedom and constraint informed by the heritage of Tiwi culture.

 

Michelle Woody applies Tiwi earth pigments using the Kayimwagakimi (comb), a painting tool made from locally harvested ironwood and used in Tiwi ceremonial body painting. In the long-standing tradition of her ancestors, she utilises three traditional colours of the island landscape: white, yellow and red.

 

Timothy Cook is a celebrated Tiwi artist nationally and internationally. His art depicts body paint designs used in the Pukamani Ceremony (Tiwi burial ceremony) and the Kulama Ceremony (yam ceremony). His work is characterised by a powerful compositions and robust application of lines dots and shapes. Timothy’s distinctive style has received much attention and with numerous group and solo exhibitions.

 

Conrad Tipungwuti has been painting at Jilamara Arts since the late 1990’s. Alongside Timothy Cook, Conrad is part of the Ngawa Mantawi (all of us together) program which supports artists with special needs, while remaining close to family and Country. The over-arching themes of his work depict the wet season Pakatiringa (rain) and the Kulama initiation ceremony. This is represented by large concentric circles that refer both to the yams prepared during the ceremony and large rings that appear around the moon in late wet season signifying the beginning of the Kulama season.

 

Janice Murray is celebrated for her depictions of a vast array of Tiwi birds. Her works incorporate the body designs used in the Pukamani ceremony. The geometric patterns reference stories of mythological significance involving ancestors who were changed into animals or birds.

 

Watermarks

07 October - 29 October 2023

ARTBOX, Jubilee Park, Avenel

 

This exhibition from the Nomad Art Collections looks at the diverse ways artists explore the notion of water. The works range from depictions of the sea, living water in the desert, ceremonial associations and environmental perspectives.

 

The artists include:

Candy Nakamarra – Central Australia

Helicopter Joe Tjungurrayi – Great Sandy Desert

Bawaka Yunupingu – East Arnhem Land

Laurie Nona –Torres Strait Islands

Ezarahia Kelly – West Arnhem Land

John Wolseley – Victoria

Winsome Jobling – Northern Territory

 

Join us for the opening Saturday October 7th, 10.30 am – 1 pm

Watermarks can be viewed any time and attended as follows:

Sunday 8th October, Avenel market day, 9.00 am – 1.00 pm

October 14/15 from 10 am – 1 pm

October 21/22 from 10 am – 1 pm

Other times by appointment

More information – gallery@nomadart.com.au, 0415 912 115

 

Alfonso, Lorna and Jane

05 February -

 

Nomad Art is proud to present new paintings by Alfonso Puautjimi, Lorna Kantilla and Jane M Tipuamantumirri.

 

Alfonso has been painting with the Ngaruwanajirri group on the Tiwi Islands for over 25 years. His paintings depict local objects including planes, houses, trucks and boats. Alfonso uses bold brush strokes, applying vibrant ochre colours over a black background to create lines and shapes of the objects the depicts.

 

Lorna has been working with the Ngaruwanajirri group since the group began in August 1994. Her work with watercolours is lively and spontaneous and has a feeling of movement through the use of full and flowing strokes. Sometimes the paint is transparent, sometimes opaque and thick. Lorna`s paintings are mostly non-figurative, using lines, dots and sometimes circles.

 

Jane has also been painting with the Ngaruwanajirri group since the inception of the centre in 1994. Jane draws subject matter from her Tiwi culture and surrounds including mud mussels, magpie goose, shark, fish, tunga (bark basket), Tokwampini, (ancestral bird) and pamajini (arm band for ceremony).

 

Ngaruwanajirri artists are encouraged to explore their individuality and freedom of expression, fostering skills, innovation and sense of belonging. Under a beautiful painted roof of the Keeping Place. The artists are inspired by their culture and surroundings. As with most Tiwi art the predominant colours used are natural ochres. White and yellow are collected from two beaches on Bathurst Island and burning the yellow ochre over a fire produces a third colour, red.

 

Ngaruwanajirri (meaning helping one another in Tiwi) was established as a cooperative to support Tiwi artists with disabilities and to provide employment for people at Wurrumiyanga.