Warmun Art Exhibition Warmun Art

Since its inception in 1998, Warmun Art Centre has been one of remote Australia’s most significant cultural institutions. Warmun Art Centre works with some of the most prominent contemporary painters in Australia. From the barramundi scales of Lena Nyadbi (which are now visible from the Eiffel Tower in Paris) to the vibrant imagery of Rammey Ramsey, the complex storytelling contained in Rusty Peters’ paintings and the now iconic Garnkiny doo Wardal (moon and star) by Mabel Juli. Warmun Art Centre is owned and governed by Gija people.

The Art Centre has always had as a primary goal the conservation of culturally and socially significant objects and knowledge systems and has fostered the production of art as a powerful means of cultural continuity, transmission and innovation. Gija artists continue to hold a place among the nation’s leading contemporary practitioners. Their work is exhibited and held in important collections internationally and locally in the Country’s flagship art institutions such as the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia and National Gallery of Victoria as well as the Country’s top commercial galleries.

Disclaimer: Lander & Rogers advises that this guide contains images or names of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Profiles, descriptions and images are courtesy of Warmun Art Centre. Front Cover: Images left to right: Patrick Mung Mung at Warmun Art Centre. 2 x Detail, artwork in progress, natural ochre and pigments on canvas. Phyllis Thomas at Warmun Art Centre. Ariel view near Warmun. Richard Thomas at Warmun Art Centre. Warmun Art Centre merchandise. Courtesy & Copyright Warmun Art Centre. 2 Phyllis Thomas

Phyllis Thomas was a Gija woman of Nagarra skin whose bush name, Booljoonngali, means 'big rain coming down with lots of wind'. She was born at a place called Riya on the Turner River, south east of the Bungle-Bungles. When Phyllis was young she worked on Turner Station looking after poultry, gardening, grinding salt and carting water from the well but often preferred to run away into the bush with the old women. She loved walking all over the country with her grandmother and the other old women, hunting, collecting dingo scalps and looking for gold. She married Joe Thomas from Rugun, Crocodile Hole and lived there for many years.

She began painting when Freddie Timms set up the Jirrawun Art at Crocodile Hole. Her work depicting Dreaming places and bush tucker from the Crocodile Hole area as well as the country around the middle reaches of the Ord and Turner rivers where she was born, achieved almost immediate success. She was represented in the Telstra Art award exhibition in 1999 with a stunning picture Boornbem Goorlem, Hot Water Spring II done in black and a pinkish red colour made by mixing red and white ochre. The spring is in a gorge with the open sky shown as a plain expanse of paint above the water and rock faces. Other works include Bush Honey - ‘Sugarbag’ Dreaming at Dry Swamp in which the dark cells of the hives float on a plain ground, and Loomoogool Blue Tongue Lizard Dreaming in which a prominent landscape feature is seen from the side.

Phyllis' work has been acquired by a number of collectors and galleries including a special focus purchase of five paintings by the Western Australian Art Gallery in 2000. Her painting 'The Escape' done as part of a series of paintings relating to massacre stories by Jirrawun artists intended to be shown together as "Blood on the Spinifex" was exhibited at the Seventeenth National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award Exhibition in 2000 and was highly commended. It was purchased as part of the MAGNT Telstra collection. This image was used as the poster and catalogue cover for the exhibition at the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne between December 2002 and March 2003. An eight panel series on the same subject was shown at Raft Artspace in Darwin in April 2002. This was purchased by the Western Australian Art Gallery in 2003. Phyllis was also a singer and dancer with the Neminuwarlin Performance Group in its production of Fire, Fire Burning Bright which premiered at the Perth International Arts Festival in February 2002 and opened the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts the State Theatre of Victoria in October 2002. She sang the haunting Warnalirri with Peggy Patrick on the second half of the group’s CD released in 2002 during PIAF.

In 2017, Ms. Thomas' work created during the Jirrawun era was featured in a special exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia during the TARNANTHI festival the same eight panel Gemerre series was later featured in RAFT Artspace's special duo show, featuring her works and those of Peggy Patrick in Alice Springs (in June 2018). Booljoon later created a beautiful painting reminiscing her sisters who were stolen from their birth country and placed in Wyndham, in a painting entitled "My Stolen Sisters from Gija Country," which was a finalist in the Art Gallery of NSW's 2018 Wynne Prize.

The great artist attended her last Warmun artist weekly Tuesday meeting on Tuesday 30th October 2018, where she enjoyed the special birthday cake marking the 20th Anniversary of Warmun Art Centre with some fellow artists and friends. She passed away peacefully at Kununurra Hospital on Monday Nov 5th 2018 in the late afternoon. 3 Phyllis Thomas

Untitled, 80x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$3,500.00

Catalogue #: 559/14

Rammey Ramsey, a senior Gija man of Jungurra skin, was born on Old Greenvale Station which is now part of Bow River Station. His own country and that of his parents is a part of Gija country in an area to the west of Bedford Downs near Elgee Cliffs. His Gija name, Warlawoon is the general name for the whole of that area of country.

Rammey Ramsey lived in Warlawoon country walking in the bush with his family when very young then moved to Bedford Downs and worked there as a young man. He spent some time working at Landsdowne Station. He then moved to Bow River Station and has lived there ever since.

Ramsey began painting for Jirrawun Arts in 2000. In October 2000 his pictures were part of an exhibition with Hector Jandany, Timmy Timms and Paddy Bedford at William Mora Galleries in Melbourne called Gaagembi ' Poor Things’. The title of that show being a word used as a term of endearment, sympathy and sorrow. It is a word used by many people to express feelings about the country that is mostly lost to them, their predecessors who walked in it freely and the way of life that is gone.

Ramsey was one of the painters featured in the ‘Four Men Paintings’ exhibition at Raft Galleries in Darwin in March 2001. This was followed by a sell out show solo show at Raft during May 2001.

Rammey was a key figure in the production of the Bedford Downs massacre Joonba (coroborree) that was staged at the 2000 Telstra Art Award. He is an inspired dancer who helped train the young boys in dancing. He and Rusty Peters made the dance poles used in the original Joonba.

He was also an actor and dancer with the Neminuwarlin Performance Group in its production of Fire, Fire Burning Bright, Incorporating the Joonba which premiered at the Perth International Festival of the Arts in February 2002 and opened the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts at the State Theatre of Victoria from 17-20 October 2002.

Rammey Ramsey is true to his law painting only country that he has rights to through birth and family. Most of his paintings are of the stunning gorge country north west of Halls Creek in an area surrounding Elgee Cliffs. He shows the places where the Rock Wallaby live and camping areas near waterholes. The painting and the man are the essence of strength and tenderness. The paint is applied with love and vigour, the dots like pearls stitched on a bed of pink and black raw silk. Images of cliffs, hills, rock wallaby holes, camping places, rivers, rocks in the river bed, waterholes, roads, stockyards and meeting places appear as distinctions of important features of the landscape. A line might be a road or a river, a circle a waterhole, a place or a cave, a rectangle stock yards or hills.

5 Rammey Ramsey cont.

In painting in the exhibition entitled ‘Deeper than paint on canvas’ at William Mora Galleries the artist has evolved the dynamics of his artistic language. Red paint that once surrounded the black representational forms of hills, rivers and stockyards are now atmospheric fields that move in degrees from white pink and red. The artist observing his great friend Paddy Bedford painting, commented one morning that he wished to paint the Ngarranggarni way - meaning in technical terms the mixing of wet in wet two colours on the surface of the canvas to create the gestural strokes and rhythm of the brush - spiritually a way to represent the four elements of life, earth, wind, fire and water. These new painting are not the usual representations of country but are an important development in Gija art because they also convey the language of natural elements, so crucial in Aboriginal communication and foreseeing of events.

In the painting, ‘Elgee Cliffs horse branding iron’ an arabesque shape representing a branding iron flats in a field of wind and dust as though the iron conjures a vision of bullocks, kicking up a cloud of Kimberley dust. These are wonderful atmospheric painting that convey a range of different natural experiences such as mist and rain to the crackling heat and smoke of a Kimberley gas fire.

Rammey has spent a lifetime quietly in the bush working as a stockman and caring for his family. His real father died before he was born and his mother died of a snakebite when he was only a baby so he never knew his own parents.

Retired and now working as a painter and continuing his role as a loving husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather with many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who have the benefit of his care and knowledge. His paintings are an expression of a loving and gentle man who has known the hardships and beauty of life and above all a gift to convey knowledge and compassion through his art and most of all through unassuming and humble humanity. Rammey Ramsey continues to paint with Warmun Art Centre.

In 2013, Rammey was featured in Gija Manambarram Jimerawoon (Gija Senior Law People Forever) in an exhibition at the Australian Embassy in Paris. In 2015, he was a finalist in the 32nd Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, and in 2017, his work from the Jirrawun era was featured in the Art Gallery of South Australia as part of the TARNANTHI Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. He also began to return to using natural pigments and ochres during this time, after having experimented with bright acrylic paints in previous years.

Rammey continues his art practice at Juwulinji (Bow River), and often commutes to the Warmun Art Centre to bring in his new pieces. He retains some bright acrylics which can be seen dispersed throughout paintings of distinctive ochre backgrounds, revisiting Warlawoon in the minimalistic and inimitable way that Rammey sees it.

6 Rammey Ramsey

Warlawoon Country, 90x30 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

RESERVED

Warlawoon Country, 120x120 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

SOLD

Evelyn Malgil was born in Derby. At ten years old she moved to Warmun. Evelyn went to high school in the town of her birth and then returned to Warmun. Evelyn worked on Bedford Downs cattle station with her husband Norman Echo. Evelyn cooked, while Norman was the head stockman. Bedford Downs Station is located southwest of Warmun Community. It is Norman’s traditional country. Following her return, Evelyn has remained in Warmun were she now lives with her five children and her family.

9 Evelyn Malgil

Four Waterholes, 60x60 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$595.00

Catalogue #: 488/14

Mabel Juli is one of the most dedicated and iconic of all Warmun artists. Her seniority and status as one of Australia’s most revered painters has emerged from a consistent and growing body of work characterised by bold yet simple compositions that are informed by nuanced and detailed stories passed onto Mabel from her family.

She has been featured in over one hundred group shows as well as several solo shows throughout her career; her most recent one being held in the Kimberley artists own region at the Short Street Gallery in Broome (June 2018). She has also been featured twice as a finalist in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards (2015 and 2018). Mabel's Garnkiny Ngarranggarni and other dreamings continue to define the Australian Indigenous art canon; a testament to her iconic and striking expression of her Gija culture is yet again celebrated in 2018, when her Garnkiny and Bird artwork are animated in projections for "Badu Gili" on the sails of the Sydney Opera House. The result is a unique cultural setting where two iconic Australian symbols are united in a year-long event honouring and the First Nations culture and art.

Mabel Juli was born at Five Mile, near Moola Boola Station (south of Warmun), and was taken as a baby to Springvale Station, her mother's country. Mabel's 'bush name' is Wiringgoon.

She is a strong Law and Culture woman and an important ceremonial singer and dancer. Juli started painting in the 1980s, at the same time as well-known Warmun artists Queenie McKenzie and Madigan Thomas. The women used to watch Rover Thomas paint and one day he said to tell them, 'You try yourself, you might make good painting yourself'. Juli says, 'I started thinking about my country, I give it a try'. Juli is a dedicated, innovative artist who continues to work in natural earth pigments on canvas. She primarily paints the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) stories of her country Darrajayin which is covered largely by Springvale Station.

Mabel started work on the station as a little girl, and as a young woman moved to Bedford Downs Station and Bow River Station to work. Juli's mother is Mary Peters. Juli is one of seven children - six boys and one girl, Mabel. Well known artist Rusty Peters is Mabel Juli's brother. He also paints at the Warmun Art Centre.

Mabel left Springvale Station to be with her promised husband. Together they moved to different cattle stations in the Kimberley, including Bow River and Bedford Downs. Mabel and her husband had six children. He passed away in 1982; Mabel was 42.

11 Mabel Juli

Garnkiny Ngarrangkarni (Moon Dreaming),100x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigments on canvas

$5,000.00

Catalogue #: 18/17

Gordon Barney was born and grew up on Alice Downs Station. His father taught him stockwork and he became known as a skilled horsebreaker and buckjumper (rodeo rider). When Gordon worked as a stockman, he would often carry with him a saddle bag for his ochre collection. At the end of his mustering stint, he would have a bagful of ochres that he sourced from riding through his country. Whilst working on Mabel Downs Station Gordon met Shirley Purdie who later became his wife. Shirley is a well known senior Warmun artist who encouraged Gordon to paint his country. He started painting in 1998 when Warmun Art Centre commenced operation, often painting various hill lines located in his traditional country. Barney's sense of concentration and focus on country are often reflected in these landscapes. Gordon is well known in Warmun Community as a strong law and culture man and as an important ceremonial dancer.

13 Gordon Barney

Birnoo,150x50 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$8,160.00

Catalogue #: 296/14

Birnoo Country, 60x45 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$900.00

Catalogue #: 433/15

Untitled, 90x90 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

SOLD

Untitled, 80x60 cm / Natural ochre and pigments on canvas

$1,980.00

Catalogue #: 215/15

Birnoo Country, 80x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$2,700.00

Catalogue #: 48/15

Untitled, 90x90 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$2,700.00

Catalogue #: 302/18

© Courtesy and Copyright Warmun Art Centre 16 Peggy Patrick Peggy Patrick, artist with Jirrrawun Arts and chairperson of the Neminuwarlin Dance Group set up through Jirrawun, has done just about every job that anyone in the Kimberley, man or woman, could have done during the twentieth century apart from helicopter pilot. She has been stockman, drover, station cook, brick maker, windmill mechanic, electrician, barmaid, housekeeper, dressmaker, fencer, nurse, midwife, painter, teacher, singer, dancer, story teller, hunter and keeper of traditional law. She grew up in the bush learning everything practical, artistic and spiritual connected with traditional life and has the respect of her peers as a law woman. She has been involved in the political and cultural life of the East Kimberley in many ways including time as a member of the Kimberley Land Council (KLC), the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre (KALACC) and the Warmun Executive Committees. She was chairperson of Nine-Mile Community (Gooda-Gooda) at Wyndham for nine years. More recently she was chairperson of Daiwul Gidja Culture Centre working in association with Argyle Diamond Mine to run a successful crosscultural exchange program.

She has been involved in or touched by all kind of significant historical events. Her family was deeply affected by the tragic events associated with the invasion by Europeans, losing many relations in the Mistake Creek massacre and other relations in the poisoning described in the Joonba first staged at the Telstra Art Award in September 2000. She was a signatory to the first Argyle agreement when the diamond mine started and was deeply involved in the development of the new agreement signed in 2005. She was in Paris dancing Lirrga and the Gurirr-gurirr dreamed by Rover Thomas when Princess Diana died and she met Nelson Mandela in America.

She has wonderful stage presence enabling her to present deeply felt emotion in a public context. In Darwin in September 2000 she spoke moving at the closing ceremony for Rusty Peters and Peter Adsetts "Two Laws, One Big Spirit' show at 24Hour art of the feeling she had for the people who were tragically lost. There was not a dry eye in the gallery.

She led the Neminuwarlin Performance Group in its production of Fire, fire, burning bright at the Perth International Arts Festival and the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts during February and October 2002. Fire, fire, burning bright was a stage performance telling the story of the Bedford Downs massacre. It incorporated a Joonba, a song and dance cycle, given to a clever man by the spirits of the people who died. The Joonba had been performed in secret by relations in the East Kimberley and never shown to Europeans. Patrick first saw this Joonba when she was a girl of about seven. In 2000 Patrick’s brother the late Timmy Timms and his brother-in-law Paddy Bedford revealed the existence of the Joonba and ‘woke up’ the song rehearsing with Patrick and other relations to stage a performance at the Telstra Art Award in Darwin that year. 17 Peggy Patrick cont. Plans for the stage performance Fire, fire, burning bright were already under way when Patrick’s brother Timmy Timms died on the last day of 2000. Usually when someone dies, the songs they are deeply associated with are not performed for a number of years after the death. It was a wonderful example of her courage and her deep commitment to maintenance of song and dance and to Reconciliation that Patrick was able to keep going as the leader of the performance after losing her brother. Before Patrick was born her mother had been living at Bedford Downs. Her two older brothers the late Timmy Timms and FreddyTimms’ father were born there. Her father was one of the large group of people arrested and sent to jail after the killing of the bullock that eventually caused the massacre told of in the Joonba. On release from jail the people were given ‘”tickets”’ and told to return to Bedford Downs. Some threw the tickets away. Those who went back with the tickets were killed. Patrick’s father was one of the people who pulled off the ticket and did not go back to Bedford in Gija country after being in jail.

Patrick's mother was really Miriwoong. After her father was released from jail he picked up her mother and two older brothers and they went to live for a while on Ivanhoe, part of Miriwoong country. Patrick was born near the Ord River during that time, close to the site of present day Kununurra. Her bush name Dirrmingali refers to the brightness of the red rock of Kelly's Knob in the late afternoon. Her other name Barratjil belongs to women of Naangari skin and the eagle dreaming that goes with that skin. It refers to the way the eagle dives to grab his prey with feet outstretched.

When she was a baby her family lived in the bush away from white people for much of the time. They travelled by foot from Ivanhoe back to Doon following the Dunham River, calling at Kingston Rest and eventually going to Theringin, old Greenvale station, now part of Bow River Station. Her parents got work there and stayed. This is where she and her two older brothers grew up and her younger sister and brother were born. When Walter Macale gave up Greenvale, her family went to Turkey Creek for a while.

18 Peggy Patrick

Loomoogoo Ngarranggarni (Blue Tongue Lizard Dreaming), 80x100 cm / Natural ochre and pigments on linen

$2,160.00

Catalogue #: JA016/08

Nancy Nodea grew up and worked most of her early life on Texas Downs Cattle station in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. On the station Nancy worked in a wide range of roles including checking bores, roadbuilding, milking the goats, making Butter and general housework. Nancy began painting in 1994, guided by Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie. Nancy has explored contemporary stories that occurred in the East Kimberley over the past 200 years since white settlement. She has told the stories of the white cameleers and massacre sites not far from Warmun in her paintings; she is one of the strongest historical painters at Warmun but also paints her beloved Texas Downs Station country. Nancy and other artists who grew up on this station take an active role in taking young people out to country to hunt, fish and return to traditional ways of living with the land.

20 Nancy Nodea

New Camp (Texas), 50x50 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$680.00

Catalogue #: 193/18

Untitled, 45x45 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$425.00

Catalogue #: 80/19

Lorraine Daylight was taught to paint by her senior relatives, Hector Jandany and Jack Britten, who were both established Warmun Artists of high regard. Hector was Lorraine's ganggayi (grandfather). Lorraine's father, Gordon Barney, is also a well- known Warmun Artist. Lorraine has a close connection to her family's country, mainly because many bush trips are organised by the senior men to go out fishing and hunting for bush turkey, kangaroo and goanna throughout the year. Lorraine takes advantage of these trips and Often sends her three boys to experience and learn the bush ways. Lorraine's main themes come from the traditional oral stories of the Ngarrgooroon or Texas Downs Station country. Lorraine's mother, Jeanne Daylight, lived out on Texas Downs Station as a young women. She, too, now lives in Warmun. In 1999, Lorraine won the Encouragement Award at the highly competitive East Kimberley Art Award.

23 Lorraine Daylight

Ngarrgooroon, 80x80 cm/Natural ochre and pigment, lacquer on canvas

$1,275.00

Catalogue #: 462/13

Tommy Carroll was born on Doon Station, 100 kilometres north of Warmun Community. His bush name is Balabany. As a young boy he worked as a stockman at Doon and throughout his youth he also worked on Bow River and Lissadell Stations. He also used to assist the Outstation Manager at Warmun Community. Tommy commenced painting in late 1999, inspired to do so by his wife, Katie Cox, another emerging Warmun artist. He says that painting makes him think about his country and the Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) stories and about the places he used to visit as a child and when he was working as a stockman. Tommy Carroll's works are often dark and brooding. He uses heavy concentrations of black charcoal and red natural ochres. The majority of Tommy’s painting derive from stories near or around Doon Station , and primarily stories associated with the Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming).

25 Tommy Carroll

Nuguwarrding (Snake Dreaming),100x80 cm/Natural ochre and pigments on canvas

$3,120.00

Catalogue #: 74/16

Mary Thomas was born in August 1944 on Alice Downs Station in the East Kimberley. She is the mother of nine children, all of whom are now grown up and, like Mary, well educated and well respected community members. Mary lives in Warmun Community (Turkey Creek) and is an important Gija law and culture keeper. Thomas grew up and worked on Alice Downs Station until she moved to Warmun Community. Mary has been a tireless worker for the women and children of her community, teaching culture, craft, art and associated Dreamtime Stories of the land and her heritage. Mary speaks a number of dialects and is a dedicated linguist, interpreting for meetings, court procedures and very importantly for a publication about the Gija people entitled ‘Digging Sticks to Writing Sticks’ by Sister Veronica Ryan of the Catholic Education Department. Mary’s artworks are neat and precise landscape works, complete with in-depth Ngarranggarni (Gija Dreaming) stories. Mary is actively involved with 'Two- Way' worship in Warmun which is a combination of traditional Gija Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and Catholicism. Thomas is team leader in Warmun's award-winning drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. Thomas is also a traditional healer. She holds much knowledge about the therapeutic qualities of many plants found in Gija country and is an expert in their preparation for use in traditional therapies. Thomas paints the Ngarranggarni (Dreamings) of her country on Alice Downs Station. Through her paintings, she passes on these stories as well as relating events from the more recent past since white contact. Thomas' granddaughters, Julieanne and Johnine Echo also paint, taking their grandmother's country as the subject of their work.

27 Mary Thomas

Untitled,140x50 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

SOLD

Shirley Purdie has been painting for more than twenty years and is an artist of increasing significance and seniority. Her cultural knowledge and artistic skill complement each other to produce a practice that holds great strength. Shirley is also a prominent leader in Warmun community and an incisive cross-cultural communicator.

Inspired by more senior Warmun artists including her late mother, the great Madigan Thomas, as well as Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie, Shirley began to paint her country in the early 1990s. Shirley’s uncle, artist Jack Britten, said to her, ‘Why don’t you try yourself for painting, you might be all right.’ Shirley says: 'it’s good to learn from old people. They keep saying when you paint you can remember that country, just like to take a photo, but there’s the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and everything. Good to put it in painting, your country, so kids can know and understand. When the old people die, young people can read the stories from the paintings. They can learn from the paintings and maybe they want to start painting too.’ Shirley’s body of work explores sites and narratives associated with the country of her mother and father and is characterized by a bold use of richly textured ochre.

Significant places such as Baloowa, Jirragin and Gilban lie on country now taken in by Violet Valley and Mabel Downs cattle stations. Much of her work also explores spirituality and the relationship between Gija conceptions of Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and Catholicism. In 2007 Shirley was awarded the Blake Prize for Religious Art for her major work Stations of the Cross. Colonial histories of the region also figure in Shirley’s work in which she relates accounts of early contact, massacre, warfare and indentured labour since the incursion of pastoralists into Gija land in the late 1800s.

Shirley is presently working on a major exhibition and publication of great cultural and ecological value documenting through painting and in Gija language the plants and trees of her country.

29 Shirley Purdie

Goordbelayinji, 150x50 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$4,800.00

Catalogue #: 363/14

Gija Skin Groups for Women, 90x180 cm

$8,650.00

Catalogue #: 87/19

Gyinnyan The Crane, 80x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$3,600.00

Catalogue #: 122/19

Untitled, 80x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$3,600.00

Catalogue #: 170/19

Untitled, 60x60 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$600.00

Catalogue #: 57/15

Argyle Diamond Dreaming, 60x60 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

SOLD

Churchill Cann was born and grew up on Texas Downs Station, northeast of Warmun, where he worked as a stockman for most of his life. His bush name is Yiliyarri. Churchill has travelled extensively throughout the Kimberley, working on many different cattle stations between Warmun and Broome. When station work finished, Churchill moved to Warmun Community to live, where he is well known as an important ceremonial dancer, bushman and senior artist. Churchill is one of the few remaining medicine men for the Gija language group; he inherited this role from his father. Many of Churchill's siblings are also artists; they include Nancy Nodea and Katie Cox. Churchill’s painting style is distinctive. He views the landscape aerially and maps out his country in soft, painterly marks. Churchill’s paintings are carefully observed topological maps of this region. Churchill's country is located northeast of the Warmun Community on what is now called Texas Downs Station. Churchill’s paintings involve aspects of Traditional Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) stories as well as his own experiences in this country as a stockman and station hand. When Churchill undertakes a painting, he will often spend some time reflecting and considering what aspect of his country or experience he will communicate. Churchill's daughter, Charlene Carrington, is also a dedicated artist.

In 2013, Churchill won the Western Australian Artist of the Year at the Western Australian Artist Awards.

34 Churchill Cann

Lolly Creek, 120x90 cm / Natural ochre and pigments on canvas

$6,600.00

Catalogue #: 314/12

Sade Carrington Buddbarria (bush name Dalimbal) was born at Balanygerre (Texas Downs Cattle Station) near Warmun in 1957.

Carrington has been influenced by many of the early painters of Warmun including Hector Jandany, Jack Britten, Queenie McKenzie, Rover Thomas and her father Beerbee Mungnari who sadly passed away in 2011. 'I was one of the first artists to start painting, along with my father Beerbee' she says. 'Before Warmun Art Centre started we'd [Queenie and I] just come in [to the old post office garden] and sit down and start painting. I began painting in the 80’s, but it was not until the 90’s when I had my first solo exhibition with Seva Frangos in Perth. I also represented East Kimberley women and spoke about Gija art in China.’ In the late 90’s Sade had a solo show at Boomerang Gallery in Amsterdam, where she lived for some time. ‘I was a special guest Artist in Arnhem (Holland) with artists from all around Australia. After that I was a special guest artist with a number of International artists , and I was the only Aboriginal artist among them.’ In 1997 Sade came third overall in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

Notable characters have also been presented with her work as gifts at various events including the Duchess of Kent. NASA owns one of her Star and Moon paintings and Rupert Murdoch also has Sade’s work in his collection. Her parents Betty Carrington Budbarria and Beerbee Mungnari are also artists. And Sade’s art career, like her character, is worldly, diverse and surprising. Carrington was schooled at Beagle Bay Mission when she was four and was allowed to see her family for only two weeks a year. At thirteen, she was sent to the Pallentine Mission in Rossmoyne, Perth and attended St Joachims Ladies College. Sade’s recalls that she did not like being taken away from her family. At fifteen she returned to Texas to marry.

Carrington started painting at the age of 13, using traditional ochre. The stories she paints are from her family's country, Texas Downs Station, as well as her great-grandmother's country, Purnululu (the Bungle Bungles). 'Jack Britten taught me how to do Bungle Bungles,' she says, commencing that men don't usually teach women, but in the late 1980s there were not many young men fit to be painters. Carrington’s paintings are a tribute to her country and the connection she has been taught primarily by her mother, Betty Carrington. Carrington has travelled extensively throughout Australia and overseas. Carrington brings to her work her experience and awareness of the contemporary international art world, combining this with her intimate knowledge of Gija culture, country, history and language.

36 Sade Carrington

Purnululu at Night, 70x50 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

RESERVED

Karlumbool (Spear Hill), Texas Downs Station, 60x45 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$1,200.00

Catalogue #: 514/15

Ngarrgooroon Country, 90x30 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

SOLD

David Cox was born at Yiyili, between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. He was schooled at Yiyili and spent most of his early years there. This area has many creeks running through it, which feed the Fitzroy River in the west of the Kimberley. David now lives in Warmun Community, Turkey Creek, where he paints. David is part of a younger group of artists at Warmun who have an intense interest in the Dreaming stories of their ancestors and are interested in exploring new ways of communicating these stories to the wider Australian community and members of the Warmun community. David learnt to paint under the instruction of established Warmun artist Churchill Cann, whose aerial approach to viewing landscape and his use of fine sweeping ‘watercolour’ strokes (using the trademark Warmun natural ochres) have greatly influenced David’s work. Many of David's stories have passed to him from his mother, while David's father, also an artist, taught him to paint. David is the cousin of well-known Warmun artist Katie Cox.

40 David Cox

Sing out spring, 80x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$1,920.00

Catalogue #: 390/18

Mark Nodea is one of the most exciting artists of his generation in Warmun today. Informed by the oral histories and culture of his Gija country and the contemporary environment his works are bold, strong and deep in character.

As a child growing up in the 1970’s and 80’s Mark was schooled in the two-way learning, founded by renowned Warmun artists including Queenie McKenzie, Hector Jandany, Jack Britten and Rover Thomas at the Ngalangangpum School, which saw the beginning of the Contemporary Art Movement in Warmun.

This two-way education gave Mark a strong grounding in Gija language and culture, alongside western education, which informs his Practice today. Mark paints his mother, artist Nancy Nodea’s Ngarrgooroon country which extends around Texas Station and down South to Purnululu. In 2001 Mark produced a design for a limited edition silver dollar commemorative coin for the Royal Australian Mint, which featured a fleet-footed bounding Kangaroo. The Royal Australian Mint has only released 10 such coins since 1983.

In 2013, Mark was awarded the City of Greater Geraldton Award for Excellence at the 2013 Mid-West Art Prize.

42 Mark Nodea

Untitled, 120x90 cm / Natural ochre and pigments on canvas

SOLD

Untitled, 180x50 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$4,320.00

Catalogue #: 89/19

Bungarrata, 80/60 cm / Natural ochre and pigments on canvas

SOLD

Beryline Mung was born in 1954 on Texas Downs Station. She began station work at the age of 15 years. When equal wages legislation was passed and Gija people were forced off their country, Beryline moved to Frog Hollow Community. Beryline has lived in Frog Hollow since and raised her children there. She is now a Gija language teacher at the school and an artist at the Warmun Art Centre. Beryline paints her country around Frog Hollow and Texas Downs. Her older brother is established Warmun artist Patrick Mung.

45 Beryline Mung

Untitled, 80x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$1,275.00

Catalogue #: 364/14

Places of Ngarrgaroon, 150x180 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$18,000.00

Catalogue #: 73/18

"I just started painting at the Warmun Art Centre. I have lived in Warmun since I was born. The reason why I really wanted to paint, because my Great Grandmother and my Grandmother shared their story with me and i want to continue their story with my children. I paint about Gija Womens skin group names, the Catholic way, making birds out of a boab nut and the most important thing I paint about my Great Grandmother, Grandmother and my Great Grandfather country and stories."

Serena's grandmother is Shirley Purdie and her great grandmother is Madigan Thomas. Her mother is Helen Pinday.

48 Serena Pinday

Untitled, 80x80 cm / Natural ochre and pigment on canvas

$416.00

Catalogue #: 279/18