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WALALA TJAPALTJARRI
Since Walala Tjapaltjarri began his adventure as a painter in 1997, he has gained recognition around the world, participating in many national and international exhibitions, both individual and collective. His paintings are in private and public collections in Australia, Europe and the USA. Walala first came into contact with painting thanks to his brother Warlimpirrnga, also a painter with international recognition. Although Walala's first paintings were in the classic Tingari style, usually typical of body painting, ground tracing and decoration of traditional artifacts, the artist developed his own innovative style within a few months. He began to paint abstractions based on classic Pintupi designs, creating a very graphic language describing his country and ceremonial locations. Previously, Walala and his family lived a traditional nomadic life in a hunting society. Their in-depth knowledge of the land and the flora and fauna that inhabit it allowed this tribe to survive for thousands of years.
Prizes and awards:
NATSIAA finalist, Darwin in: 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000.
Picture description:
The rectangles highlighted in his paintings create both a physical and spiritual map of Walala. In late 1984, Walala and several other members of the Pintupi tribe emerged from the remote wilderness of Western Australia's Gibson Desert and made their first-ever contact with European society. Described as "The Lost Tribe," he and his family made headlines around the world in 1984.
Selected individual exhibitions:
2019 Walala Tjapaltjarri Self-portrait, Opale Foundation, Lens, Switzerland
2001 Tingari Cycle – Walala Tjapaltjarri, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1999 Tingari Series – Walala Tjapaltjarri, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
1998 Tingari – Men's Business, Coo-ee Gallery, Sydney
1998 Paintings by Walali Tjapaltjarri, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne
LORNA BROWN NAPANANGKA
Lorna was born around 1965 in the bush at Haasts Bluff. Her mother, Annie Ellis Nampitjinpa, her grandfather, Obed Raggett, and other family members moved to Papunya when Lorna was a child. Lorna went to school in Papunya and clearly remembers art classes with Geoffrey Bardon (the discoverer of Aboriginal painting, the so-called Contemporary Aboriginal Art). The artist began painting seriously in 1999, and by 2005 she had three solo exhibitions at the Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne. Lorna paints her grandfather's dream.
Prizes and awards:
2006 Wynne Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Finalist
Selected individual exhibitions:
2016 Lorna Brown Napanangka, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2005 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2004 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2003 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
Collections:
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Owen Wagner Collection of Australian Art at the Hood Museum of Art,
Charlottesville, VA, USA
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Artbank, Sydney Union Bank of Switzerland, Zuerich
GEORGE WARD TJUNGURRAYI
An artist of international fame. He was born around 1945 near Lararra, southeast of Kiwirrkura. In 2004, George Ward received the prestigious Wynne Award for landscape painting at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He is the second indigenous Australian painter to be honored with this award. Represented in major collections in Australia, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, as well as the Musée des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie in Paris and the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands. He painted for the first time on canvas in 1984. Several elegantly "classic", concentric dot works from this period have survived. After his brother Yala Yala died in 1998, responsibility for painting fell on Ward's shoulders. He started creating seriously, developing his own, distinct style. The canvases he produced were unlike anything that had appeared before in the desert art movement. He was a reserved and quiet man. “I'm a bush man,” he insisted, with a clear, proud edge to his voice.
Anita Angel, art curator at Charles Darwin University, says about his art:
“It's instantly recognizable. It has its own style, but it's more than just style. He comes from some depth of his mind to grasp what he is doing. He doesn't experiment, he knows exactly what he's creating.”
Ward died on September 22, 2023.
Selected author's exhibitions:
2010 George Ward Tjungurrayi, Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery, Sydney
2005 George Ward Tjungurrayi, Clarence Gallery, London
1998 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne 1997 Utopia Art, Sydney
Hundreds of group exhibitions, including the 2013 Venice Biennale, Imago Mundi, Venice
Prizes and awards:
2004 Wynne Award, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney – Winner
2003 20. NATSIAA, Darwin – Finalist
2003 Desert Mob, Araluen Art Center, Alice Springs – Finalist
Picture description:
This captivating work is a perfect example of the artist's multi-layered compositions. The painting depicts Karrkurritinytja (Lake MacDonald) and tells the story of the journeys of mythological ancestors, known as Tingari, who traveled through this land, performing rituals and creating sacred places of worship.
CHRISTINE NAKAMARRA CURTIS
Christine Nakamarra Curtis was born into a family of artists, which includes Kelly Napanangka Michaels - her mother, Roy Jupurrurla Curtis - her father and Alice Nampijinpa Henwood Michaels - her aunt. The artist started painting in 2007. He presents the Dreams of his maternal grandfather. They refer directly to the land, the characteristic features of the landscape, as well as the fauna and flora inhabiting this region. These stories have been passed down in her family from generation to generation for millennia. Using an unlimited color palette, Christine gives her indigenous culture her own modern interpretation.
Selected collective exhibitions:
2022 Tanami Today, Art Mob, Hobart
2022 Out Bush: Warlu
2022, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne
2019 The Children of the Warlpiri, Art Mob, Hobart, TAS
2018 Land and Sky – Warlpiri Artists, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA
Picture description:
Mina Mina Jukurrpa tells the story of a group of ancestors of archaic women who walked through the land of Mina Mina dancing during the creation of the world. When they danced, "karlangu" (digging sticks) grew out of the ground. The women collected them and continued east. The holy women were followed by men from the Jakamarra subclan. The men pretended to be birds, cawed and hid in the bushes. The dancing women stirred up a huge cloud of dust that wiped out the 'walyankarna' (serpent ancestors). The snake ancestors were previously witch larvae (a desert insect) who stopped in Mina Mina to watch the dancing women. The ash cloud blew them further north into Yaturluyaturlu. In this way, the Dreaming Woman and the Dreaming of the Witch Larvae become one. This enabled female ancestors to observe the larvae and perpetuated traditional knowledge of how best to locate and cook them. Warlpiri women use these skills to this day. The Jukurrpa dream therefore contains valuable information about male and female social roles in Warlpiri culture, especially in the context of rituals performed. These roles were reversed: women took care of holy places and weapons, which is now exclusively the domain of men. Jukurrpa's Mina Mina paintings often use sinuous lines to represent the snake vine. The circles and curves may represent "jinti parta" (desert truffles) that the women collected during their travels, and the straight lines represent "karlangu" (digging sticks).
VALERIE NAPANANGKA MARSHALL
Valerie Napanangka Marshall was born at Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to the Ltyentye Apurte community, also known as Santa Teresa, an Arrernte indigenous community in Australia's Northern Territory, approximately 80 kilometers from Alice Springs. Shortly after Valerie's birth, her family moved to Yuendumu and then to Nyirripi, where the artist lives to this day. She attended Kormilda College, an Aboriginal boarding school in Darwin. He has been painting since 2001 at the Warlukurlangu Artists Corporation, an Aboriginal-led art center in Yuendumu, a community 290 km from Alice Springs. She paints her father's Dreams, related to the land, the features of the landscape, the plants and animals inhabiting it. These Dreams have been passed down from generation to generation in her family for at least 50 millennia. To represent her traditional Jukurrpa, Valerie uses traditional iconography while developing her own modern style.
Picture description:
Pikilyi is a large and important body of water and natural spring near Mount Doreen Station. Pikilyi Jukurrpa (Vaughan Springs Dreaming) tells the story of the land of two rainbow snakes, prehistoric heroes who lived together as husband and wife. The female "rainbow snake" belonged to the Napanangka skin group and the male to the Japangardi. It was a taboo relationship, contrary to Waripiri religious law. Nevertheless, one day the women of the Napanangka and Napangardi clans sat next to two snakes and picked lice from them. In gratitude for this favor, the rainbow snakes allowed the women to draw water from the springs in Pikilya. This was because snakes were the 'kirda' or spiritual owners of the land. The spirits of a pair of rainbow snakes still reside in Pikilya. This dream belongs to women and men of the Japanangka/Napanangka and Japangardi/Napangardi skin groups.
ALL PAINTINGS IN THE UTOPIA ART DREAMTIME STORIES COLLECTION WERE ETHICALLY PURCHASED AND HAVE CERTIFICATES OF AUTHENTICITY.
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