sign in sign up
<<
Home , Anangu, Aputula, Hector Burton, Iltur, Jimmy Donegan, Kanpi

THE POWER OF THE LAW

A benchmark selection of works by artists from the An–angu Yankunytjatjara Lands and the Lands Acknowledgements

Wakefield Press Published on the occasion of the exhibition 1 The Parade West Tjukurpa Pulkatjara, the Power of the Law Kent Town, South 5067 at the during www.wakefieldpress.com.au the 50th anniversay of the Festival in March 2010. First published 2010 The exhibition was organised by Copyright © Ananguku Arts and Culture Ananguku Arts and Culture Aboriginal Aboriginal Corporation ICN 3834, 2010. Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this The exhibition Tjukurpa Pulkatjara, publication may be reproduced or The Power of the Law, was curated transmitted in any form or by any means, by Marina Strocchi and Wayne Eager in electronic or mechanical (including response to selections made by art centre photocopying, recording or any information managers. On the Pitjantjatjara storage and retrieval system) without Yankunytjatjara Lands: Amanda Dent permission from the publisher. (Tjungu Palya), Skye O’Meara (), It is customary for some Indigenous Claire Eltringham and Bronwyn Taylor communities, including the Ngaanyatjarra, (Ninuku Artists), Debra Myers, Ruth Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, not to McMillan and Julian Green (Ernabella Arts), mention the names nor reproduce images Beverley Peacock ( Arts and Crafts), of the recently deceased. All images and Toni Seidel (Mimili Maku), Helen Johnson mentions of recently deceased persons in (Iwantja Arts). On the Ngaanyatjarra Lands: this book have been reproduced with the Edwina Circuitt (Warakurna Artists), Kerry permission of family members. However, Martin (Kayili Artists), Wesley Maselli readers should be aware that there are (Tjalirli), Anthony Spry (Papulankatja). images and there is mention of deceased Exhibition administration at Ananguku persons and their work in this book. Arts: Elizabeth Tregenza, Kirsten Grace, Where there are dialectical variations Iain Morton, Hannah Grace and at the and variations in spellings between South Australian Museum: Mark Judd, Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Tim Gilchrist. Yankunytjatjara, the preferred spelling Ananguku Arts and Culture Aboriginal of the language group has been used in Corporation is supported by the South that section. Australian Government through Arts SA, Contributing authors: the Australian Government through the Judith Ryan Anangu Pitjantjatjara National Arts and Crafts Industry Support Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra art of and Indigenous Culture Support program a new millennium. of the Department of the Environment, David Miller Manta Tjukurpa Water, Heritage and the Arts, the Visual Painta-mililpai Arts and Crafts Strategy, an initiative Stephen Muecke Keeping everything alive of the Australian, State and Territory in its place. Governments, and by the Aboriginal and John Tregenza Tjukurpa Manta Anangu. Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Amanda Dent, Skye O’Meara, Dr. Diana Australia Council. James, Marita Baker, Helen Johnson, Ananguku Arts and Culture Aboriginal Edwina Circuitt. Corporation also wishes to acknowledge Produced by Ananguku Arts and Culture the assistance of Marshall Arts, Adelaide, Aboriginal Corporation. ; Randell Lane Fine Art Perth, ; Aboriginal and Edited by Elizabeth Tregenza. Pacific Art, Sydney, New South Wales; Photographs: Iain Morton, Amanda Dent, Centre; Alcaston Tim Acker, Tim Pearn, Hannah Grace. Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria; Araluen Centre, Museums and Art Galleries of Graphic Design: Katrina Allan. the , ; Art Gallery of South Australia; John Front cover and opening page: Cruthers; Short Street Gallery Broome; Jimmy Baker Ngintaka, Kalaya, Wanampi Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne, 2008 , South Australia Australia in assembling the works for this Synthetic polymer paint on canvas exhibition and catalogue. 136 x 120 cm Courtesy Private Collection. © The artist and Tjungu Palya Photograph Iain Morton

ISBN 978 1 86254 890 9 Map

Alice Springs Utju Tjarlirli Artists Areyonga Kayili Artists (Tjukurla) (Patjarr) Warakurna Artists (Warakurna)

Mutitjulu Papulankutja Artists Ninuku Artists Mannra Finke (Kalka) Angatja (Blackstone) R VE MANN ANGES USGRA RANG M ES Irrunytju Tjunga Palya Tjala Arts Wingellina Pipalyatjara (Amata) Ernabella Arts (Nyapari) (Pukatja) TOM KINSON RANGES Kaltjiti Arts (Fregon) NGE RD RA S To , Laverton RA Iwantja Arts VE Mimili Maku Arts E () Coffin Hill (Mimili)

ANANGU PITJANTJATJARA YANKUNYTJATJARA LANDS CONSERVATION PA RK

MAMUNGARI CONSERVATION PARK

Tjuntuntjarra Oak Valley

MARALINGA LANDS

Maralinga

Yalata

Ceduna

Contents

Foreword Manta, Tjukurpa, Painta-mililpai by David Miller 2 Essay Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra art of a new millennium by Judith Ryan 4 Keeping everything alive in its place by Stephen Muecke 10 Context Law, land and people by Elizabeth Tregenza and John Tregenza 12 The Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia 14 Ninuku Artists 14 Harry Tjutjuna 16 Angampa Martin 18 20 Nyayati Stanley Young 22 Ninuku Collaborative: Yaritji Connelly, Judy Miller, Anyupa Nelson, Heather Watson, Puntjina Monica Watson, Tjuruparu Watson, Yangi Yangi Fox, Renae Fox 24 Tjungu Palya 26 Jimmy Baker 28 Kunmanara (Eileen Yaritja) Stevens 30 Wingu Tingima 32 Kungkarangkalpa Tjukurpa - The Story of the Seven Sisters 33 35 Giinger Wikilyiri 38 Nyankulya Watson Walyampari 40 Angkaliya Curtis 42 Nellie Stewart 44 David Miller 46 Bernard Tjalkuri 48 Watarru Collaborative: Wipana Jimmy, Tjukapati Brumby, Tinpulya Mervin, Bronwyn Jimmy, Beryl Jimmy, Mary Tyrone, Katrina Pollard and Mayara Tjalkuri 50 Tjala Arts 52 54 Wanampi Tjukurpa - Water Snake Creation Story 56 Ruby Williamson 58 Tjampawa Katie Kawiny 60 62 Ray Ken 64 66 Wawiriya Burton 68 Ernabella Arts 70 Dickie Minyintiri 72 Nura Rupert 74 Kaltjiti Arts and Crafts 76 Robin Kankapankatja 78 Taylor Cooper 79 Tali Tali Pompey 80 Mimili Maku Arts 82 Milatjari Pumani 84 Iwantja Arts and Crafts 86 Alec Baker 88 The Ngaanyatjarra Lands in Western Australia 90 Warakurna Artists 90 Myra Cook 92 Carol Golding 94 Tjaparti Bates 96 Tommy Mitchell 98 Warakurna collaborative: Men’s Walu Tjukurrpa Tommy Mitchell, Peter Tjarluri Lewis, Clifford Mitchell 100 Tjarlirli Artists 102 Nyarrapyi Giles 104 Kayili Artists 106 Ngipi Ward 108 Blackstone (Papalukantja) 110 Cliff Reid 110 Notes 112 Foreword Manta, Tjukurpa, Painta-mililpai Panya art centre tjutangka mapakani I can’t tell you the whole story for this kala nganganyi kuwari punya place because we have to keep the warungku tjukutjuku makampara stories straight, not mix up the story wanara mapulkaringanyi ngura with the sacred. Other people may not winkingka. understand. Other people might sit here, at Inarki, Art centres are like fire, spreading and think it’s a good spot for a picnic, out across the Lands. but there’s a Tjukurpa story right Ananguku Arts and Culture through here. This (placing his hand Aboriginal Corporation is proud on the sandy creekbed at his feet) is to bring together this exhibition the track of the Euro. In the Tjukurpa, of paintings by senior artists from what whitefellas call the Dreamtime, the Ngaanyatjarra and Anangu the Euro travelled through here while Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands. my grandfather was cleaning up the Art centres spinifex at Kirrpin. He’s been there We call this exhibition Tjukurpa cleaning up that place, clearing the Pulkatjara because it contains many are like fire, spinifex. That’s how it became a lake. powerful stories by senior custodians This Euro went past. My grandfather of the Tjukurpa, the Law. The Law, the saw him. The next minute he saw a spreading out land and the people are joined as one. big mob of Anangu following that Euro The Tjukurpa songlines crisscross because he was very large and they across the this land. It is a place of many were following him to kill him. powerful stories. Lands. When I paint, this is one of the stories This land is important to me because I can paint, the story about this creek. it has been important before – for generations, for my grandfather, my There is no word for artist in grandfather’s father and many more Pitjantjatjara. Painting has only passed away. Here [at Inarki], you can happened recently, so we say ‘Painta see Tjukurpa all around you. When I mililpai’ (using the English word) – go to the city or any other place I can’t “He’s painting”. When I paint I can see the Tjukurpa, can’t see anything. see a picture, and every time I do a We got to look after the place and painting of that story, it’s right in front keep it our way, stay strong, so the of me – I can see it clearly and I have young people, granddaughters and a clear understanding. The stories grandsons, can see the Tjukurpa. Pitjantjatjara people paint are clear, This country provides everything we the stories of Tjukurpa. need for our way of life. When I was Painting is becoming more important a child, my family travelled on foot all for teaching the stories of Tjukurpa over this country, from Warburton to to our grandchildren. When you do a Ernabella. At Inarki my father told me painting about your own place, family “You’ve got to look after this country”. can still see it, and say ‘This is our I was told by the old people, this place’. The young ones growing up, Tjukurpa is your history. You can keep they see a painting and they ask about those stories and pass the stories on it. All our paintings are important. to others, pass the Tjukurpa on to the next generation David Miller, Chairperson, Ananguku Arts and Culture Aboriginal Corporation at Inarki 31st October 2009

Right: Kirrpin. Photographgraph Iain Morton. page 2

Judith Ryan ...the epicentre Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara and dynamic and Ngaanyatjarra art of a new thrust of the millennium Prelude Now, almost forty years after its Western Desert genesis, the epicentre and dynamic A modern art movement of profound thrust of the Western Desert art importance originated at art movement movement has dramatically shifted in 1971–72 when senior Aboriginal from Papunya, Kintore and Kiwirrkura men forged a new art form out had dramatically to Ngaanyatjarra and Anangu of the ancient visual language Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) shared by many different peoples art centres that lie in close proximity shifted... of the vast inland deserts of the to the tri-state border of NT, WA and Australian continent. Through a SA or due east of the SA border. The conjunction of archetypal designs untrammelled paintings of senior and modern materials, the founding Ngaanyatjarra and Pitjantjatjara men artists articulated their ways of and women1 who are new to acrylic understanding, seeing and sensing on canvas, but who share the same country and its sources of spiritual cryptic and powerful iconography, power and navigated a contentious cultural law, song-lines of tjukurpa transition from the restricted context and towering compassion for country of ceremony to the marketplace. as their Western Desert relatives, are From the mid 1980’s Western Desert now taking the art world by storm. women, custodians of ritual and of sacred sites, began to emulate and Genesis outshine their male relatives as artists of daring invention, initially at Painting on canvas for the commercial Yuendumu, Utopia and then Kintore. market in APY and Ngaanyatjarra Eventually, a rich and potent form of communities was sporadic until landscape painting developed that is post 2001 probably due to forces of conceptual and abstract and holds conservatism, underscored by the in equipoise an aerial perspective fierceness of Anangu Tjukurpa, and to of country and the idea of being the designation of the APY Lands as a close to the ground. By the end of region specialising in the production the twentieth century, it was clear of batik and punu (carved wooden that Western Desert painting had objects). From as early as 1948, when erupted into the art world and had an art centre was established at transformed the way we see the land Ernabella, the first such in Aboriginal and the history of art in this country. Australia, Anangu women were nurtured as artists whereas men But the excitement aroused in were given work as shepherds and European outsiders during the early stockmen. Some canvases were 1970’s by the revolutionary works was produced for Maruku Arts at Mutjitjulu not shared by senior Ngaanyatjarra during the 1980s but the practice and other Western Desert lawmen. was discouraged because it was The male elders were unprepared and thought that it might interfere with shocked to encounter the dangerous the making of punu, an art form still signs and symbols of men’s business associated with Maruku Arts. Other on open display in Alice Springs and APY art centres at Kaltjiti, Indulkana Perth and rioted, regarding them as and Amata followed Ernabella’s lead sacrilegious. The artists’ by focusing production on walka mimetic depiction of secret/sacred (meaningful designs, marks), batik, aspects of tjukurpa watiku (men’s law) printmaking and punu, rather than was seen as a selling out of Aboriginal acrylic paintings. Although Anangu culture to maliki (outsiders), a were not painting on canvas, they perception that persisted well into were experimenting with modern the 1990’s and delayed the genesis materials and developing walka, an of painting across the APY (Anangu iconography based on milpatjunanyi Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) and (sand drawings), a form of visual Ngaanyatjarra Lands until the advent speech closely associated with of a new millennium. page 4 Photograph Iain Morton. gesture and language, used as a basis their own painting outlet. Despite Artists and Warakurna Artists, also for work in mediums ranging from unsuccessful applications for ATSIC encompassing Yarnangu living in hooked rugs to punu. and Government funding, the women Jamieson, Docker River, Wanarn and pooled their pension cheques, Tjukurla. Concurrently, flexible art Issuing from a similar suspicion started a second-hand shop and enterprises, such as Ninuku, Mimili of earlier manifestations of the by mid 2001, with assistance from Maku and Tjungu Palya, were set up Western Desert Art movement, the Amanda Dent, the first manager, had throughout the APY Lands in 2004, first large Ngaanyatjarra canvases raised enough money to create their 2004 and 2005 respectively to service were produced at Warburton in 1990, own art centre. Soon paintings of small clusters of linked homelands neither for the commercial market immense visual power and freedom and thereby enable artists to paint nor to hang on walls. Artists were of gesture were being produced for in country. Amanda Dent, the introduced to the acrylic medium as Irrunytju Arts. Exuberant innovators founding manager of Irrunytju Arts, part of the Warburton Arts Project such as Anmanari Brown were has given continuity to the which was established in order to prepared to take risks with paint, Anangu art movement by establishing maintain rock art sites, produce building it up through close dotting both Ninuku and Tjungu Palya and art for ceremonial purposes and and overlayering, or creating managing Tjungu Palya from its thereby foster cultural practices chequerboard blocks of rainbow inception. Dent has established and that had been sequestered during colour. Wingu Tingima, by contrast, maintained rigorous standards of mission days. Evidenced by the 260 painted with exuberant lyricism, quality control, sound commercial canvases produced, painted right to incorporating looping rhythms derived practices and strong exhibition the edge and featuring incandescent from inma body designs to create histories for Anangu artists, many of colours that gyrate and shimmer, the works resonant with spirituality. The whom have worked with her in various Arts Project stimulated a cultural following year, male elders Tommy art centres. Tjungu Palya (meaning resurgence and whetted the artists’ Watson, Tjuruparu Watson, Clem ‘good together’) is in many ways enthusiasm for making art. So much Rictor and Nyakul Dawson began the backbone of the current artistic so that leading Ngaanyatjarra artists to paint on canvas. Their first works resurgence, exemplified by its Pulpurru Davies, Tjaparti Bates, are distinguished by expansive location at Nyapari in the Mann Ngipi Ward, Fred Ward Tjungurrayi colourfields and liturgical linear Ranges, a mountain likened by and Jackie Kurltjunyinta Giles have structures. Some of the founding Anangu to the bony ridge of a person’s since moved to smaller Ngaanyatjarra Irrunytju artists are no longer spine. These positive precedents communities and become stalwarts painting; others such as Anmanari, stirred managers and artist members of newly established Indigenous art Wingu, Angampa Martin, Nyankulya of long established APY centres of enterprises at Papulankatja, Patjarr, Watson Walyampari, Tjayanga Woods, walka, batik and punu at Ernabella, and Warakurna. and Tjuruparu Watson have moved Kaltjiti, Indulkana, Maruku and Amata Irrunytju, which lies just twelve to smaller APY and Ngaanyatjarra to foster and develop their own forms kilometres west of the tri-state homelands, where they continue to of acrylic painting, enabling the latest border, midway between two great produce astounding paintings, strong maverick painters of the Indigenous cultural zones of the Western in country and law. art world, Dickie Minyintiri, Harry Desert, the APY to the east and Tjutjuna, Tiger Palpatja and Tali Tali Since this major step forward, the the Ngaanyatjarra to the west, Pompey to emerge from the Lands painting movement has spread also played a strategic role in the and remain protected from market apace through a network of tiny forging of contemporary Anangu pressures to over-produce. Ngaanyatjarra and APY communities and Ngaanyatjarra art. Stimulated that radiate west and east of the In a startlingly short time a painting by news of the Warburton Arts tri-state border. Issuing from the school hitherto unfamiliar to Project, where many Irrunytju Warburton Arts Project and the tjanpi collectors of Indigenous art has residents grew up, and the Spinifex project aforementioned, a succession jumped out of this the last frontier Arts Project and successful Native of Ngantjatyarra art centres strong of Western Desert art, as celebrated Title claim, women, already involved in governance and tailored to service in this benchmark selection of with the tjanpi weaving project artists living in remote homelands Anangu works. Leading figures established by the NPY Women’s was formed in 2003, 2004 and include archetypal lawmen Jimmy Council in 1995, resolved to set up 2005: Papulankatja Artists, Kayili Baker, Dickie Minyintiri, Hector page 5