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Artists from the Central Desert

Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts. Sarah Dalby | Beryl DeRose | Lucinda James | Francine Kulitja | Rene Kulitja | Selina Kulitja | Pantjiti McKenzie | Kathryn Queama | Freda Teamay | Judy Trigger.
Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts. Sarah Dalby | Beryl DeRose | Lucinda James | Francine Kulitja | Rene Kulitja | Selina Kulitja | Pantjiti McKenzie | Kathryn Queama | Freda Teamay | Judy Trigger.

INGALLERY.1 & .2

02 -24 November 2019

Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts

Sarah Dalby | Beryl DeRose | Lucinda James | Francine Kulitja | Rene Kulitja | Selina Kulitja | Pantjiti McKenzie | Kathryn Queama | Freda Teamay | Judy Trigger.

 

Maruku Arts at Artsite Contemporary Sydney

Nganana tjamunya, kaminya kulira wanalpai: ngura nganampa tjuta, Tjukurpa tjutatjara. Kulilkatipaila walytja piti, ngura, Tjukurpa winki. Kuruntula uwankara kulilpai. Rene Kulitja, 2018

(We listen to our grandfathers and grandmothers and we follow their teachings: of all our lands and the stories and law that they hold. We can feel our families, our country, our culture in everything we do. We hear everything in our hearts. We hear it all with our heart, mind, body and soul as one.)

 We acknowledge the sovereignty of traditional owners. We recognize the Gadigal Wangal people of Camperdown, Sydney.
We honour the spirit of the old people and creation beings through which culture and law flows.
SOLD: Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts. Sarah Dalby | Beryl DeRose | Lucinda James | Francine Kulitja | Rene Kulitja | Selina Kulitja | Pantjiti McKenzie | Kathryn Queama | Freda Teamay | Judy Trigger.

Sarah Dalby has worked with Maruku Arts Centre, along with Walkatjara Art in Uluru, and Ernabella Arts as both a printmaker and painter. She is a cultural guide for Maruku Arts Centre, explaining many of the stories using sand drawings and painting. She is Minyma Anangu of the Central and Western desert and carries the responsibility of passing on and teaching these laws and stories.

Kapik Tjukurla ~ Waterhole, references the tradition of the Minyma tjuta – Senior Woman of the Community having the responsibility of being the main caregiver for the family and wider community and entrusted with the knowledge about local water. These responsibilities include collecting water from rock holes, soaks and creek beds and conveying this water through a traditional method of balancing large bowls on their heads. Even today these women still visit these watering holes for the traditional ceremony Inma in which dancing and body painting would occur near the waterholes, as was done since the time of creation in their culture.

Dalby´s work references the living history of her culture with these sacred sites through images of the waterholes. In this painting she symbolises the journey these women would make, and the dreaming tracks that are followed by generations of Anangu since.

Beryl DeRose is minyma Anangu, an Aboriginal woman from Kaltukatjara (Docker River) and now living in Mutitjulu within the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. A wood carver (punu) and talented emerging painter with Walkatjara Art, she performs a key role there as an art centre worker and advisor.
Beryl has been exhibiting since 2009.

Exhibitions:
2018 – Kunturu Kulini (Heart Listening) | Artsite Contemporary Galleries | Sydney
2017 – Tili Tjuta, (Field of Lights) | Uluru | NT
2016 – Iwara (Tracks) | SciArt project | Indigenous perspectives & scientific modeling celebrated together through art.

Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Beryl DeRose
Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Lucinda James

Lucinda James is a young Aboriginal woman who grew up in Mutitjulu within the Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park. The grandaughter of Maruku founders, Walter Puktiwara and Topsy Tjulyata, and niece of Rene Kulitja, she has grown up with a strong carving and painting background.

Exhibitions:
2018 – Kunturu Kulini (Heart Listening) | Artsite Contemporary Galleries | Sydney

Francine Kulitja is the eldest daughter of Maruka Director Rene Kulitja, and granddaughter of renowned wood carvers and Maruku founders, the late Topsy Tjulyata and Walter Pukutiwara. She grew up in Kaltukatjara (Docker River) in the far south west corner of the Northern Territory and spends time in the Mutitjulu Community in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park with her family, who have always been strongly involved in traditional land management, tourism and the arts.
Francine Kulitja paints the Tjukurpa and Creation Stories including the Seven Sisters or Kungkarankalpa stories she has inherited through her mother, her grandmother and her grandfather.

Exhibitions:
2018 – Kunturu Kulini (Heart Listening) | Artsite Contemporary Galleries | Sydney

SOLD: Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Francine Kulitja | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive
SOLD: Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Rene Kulitja | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive

Rene Kulitja is most recognised for her painting Yananyi Dreaming which covered the fuselage of a QANTAS Boeing 737-800.
She is a respected senior community representative, cultural custodian and a founding director of Walkatjara Art. Rene is a current Director and previous chair of Maruku Arts.
She has exhibited in major exhibitions regionally, nationally and internationally and has collaborated widely over the years, including with Fiona Hall for the Venice Biennale in 2015.
Most recently she has toured America with the Central Australian Aboriginal Womens Choir, performed ceremony at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for NAIDOC Week; lead discussions with the Seven Sisters Songline curatorium, and in 2018 completed a Tjanpi Weavers collective installation piece for the National Museum of Australia with artists including Niningka Lewis.

Group and Collabarative Exhibitions:
2018 – Kunturu Kulini (Heart Listening) | Artsite Contemporary Galleries | Sydney
2018 – Adelaide Meets the Bush | Kaurna Gallery | Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute (NACI) | Adelaide | SA
2015 – Collaboration Fiona Hall – Wrong Way Time | Australian Pavillion | Venice Biennale.
2012 – Desert Mob Show | Araluen Galleries | Alice Springs Cultural Precinct | NT
2012 – Deadly: in-between heaven and hell | Tandanya NACI | Adelaide | SA
2009 – Generation Next | Randell Lane Fine Art | Perth | WA.

Public Collections include: Walkatjara Art Archive; Araluen Arts Centre Collection, NT; Australian National Gallery, ACT; UNESCO, Brussels; Environment Australia Collection, National Museum of Australia; Maruku Arts Collection.

Selina Kulitja is minyma Anangu, from the Central Desert area of Australia. Part of her childhood was spent in the community of Areyonga before her family returned to their ancestral lands and the community of Kaltukatjara, or Docker River in the Petermann Ranges. Her mother, senor artist, Nyinku Kulitja, has taught her skills through the Tjukurpa, the Law and way of life governing their country. Selina began carving in her own right in the early 1990s and began painting with Maruku in 2007 and takes inspiration from her sister-in-law, Rene Kulitja.
Recently Selina has become an ambassador for Maruku, bringing her people´s art to a wider audience through workshops and exhibitions. Selina also performs a crucial role as a Health Worker in her local community clinic and is an active community and council member.

Exhibitions:
2018 – Kunturu Kulini (Heart Listening) | Artsite Contemporary Galleries | Sydney

Collections: The Imago Mundi Collection, Treviso, Italy.

Selina Kulitja - Ngayuku Ngura (EDX2026AS-18) 90x90cm, Acrylic on canvas Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Selina Kulitja  | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive
Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Pantjiti McKenzie OAM  | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive

Pantjiti McKenzie OAM is a senior Pitjantjatjara woman from the APY lands of northern South Australia. She spent much of her life in Ernabella where he and her late husband set up EVTV to make films recording a wide range of Anangu experiences. She documented the Land Rights movement on film. Her homeland is on Puka Station, NT. In 2009 Pantjiti moved to Docker River. She is a respected senior law woman as well as an accomplished Ngangkari or traditional healer. A talented crafter of wood, she became the chair of Maruku Arts in 2015. She s also an experienced and exhibited painter, batik artist and grass sculptor with Tjanpi Desert Weavers. In 2019 Pantjiti was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in recognition of her work for her people.

In this work, Pantjiti has painted fire dreaming, Docker River, marking the sites related to the Creation ancestors´ journeys across the country and the responsibility of protecting country by waru (or fire) according to an ancient formula. This clearing by burning, known as nyarutli, replenishes the country with fresh food plants for both Anangu and the animals they hunt.

Exhibitions:
2019 – Finalist Exhibition, Vincent Lingiari Art Award (DESARTS), Tangentyere Artists Gallery, Alice Springs, NT.
2019 – Packsaddle 2019, New England Regional Galleries (NERAM), Armidale, NSW.

Kathryn Queama is minyma Anangu, a Pitjantjatjara woman from the Central Desert. As well as working in the Docker River Store and for Nyangatjatjara Aboriginal Corporation. Her traditional skills have been passed on through the Tjukurpa, the Law and way of life governing their country. The 2018 Artsite artists camp at Uluru, provided Kathryn with the opportunity to paint on a large scale for the first timeand this is her second exhibition.

Exhibitions:
2018 – Kunturu Kulini (Heart Listening) | Artsite Contemporary Galleries | Sydney.

CollectionsMonte Sant Angelo College, North Sydney, NSW.

Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Kathryn Queama   | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive
SOLD: Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Freda Teamay   | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive
SOLD: Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Freda Teamay   | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive

Freda Teamay is based at Mutitjulu Community in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park where she and her family are involved in land management, tourism and the arts. Her father is well-known artist, Board member and spokesperson for the National Park, Malya Teamay. For any years Freda has helped both her father and mother, Awalari Teamay, in their paintings and takes inspiration from the work they do in protecting and promoting the culture of Uluru. She is now working in her own right and is also an artist with Walkatjara Art. Her Father, Malya Teamay, has recently passed on to her the right to paint his Broken Law Story about the impact colonisation has had on traditional culture and the way forward to reconciliation.

In these works, Freda has painted an abstract interpretation of her ngura or country around Malara. All land was created by and still holds the essence of the Creation Ancestors. In their journeys across the country they formed the dreaming tracks followed by countless generations of Anangu since.

Malara holds important Law stories of Wanampi or Water Serpents, powerful creatures that inhabit and guard over waterholes, and Wanampi Malarala – Rainbow Serpent at Malara (x1924-19) – many different snakes set out from Malara across the lands as far as Uluru in a warmala or war party before returning to become wanampi in the waterhole there. These ancestors are always treated with special reverence and respect for their powers and waterholes are never approached lightly.

Exhibitions:
2018 – Kunturu Kulini (Heart Listening) | Artsite Contemporary Galleries | Sydney.
2016 – Sappers & Shrapnel: Contemporary Art and the Art of the Trenches | Art Gallery South Australia (AGSA), Adeleide, SA.

Bibliography:
2016 – Sappers & Shrapnel: Contemporary Art and the Art of the Trenches | Zoe Freney | Preview (Article) | Art Guide | 09 November 2016.(https://artguide.com.au/both-diggers-and-artists-turn-conflict-into-art)

Yuka Trigger was born in the bush to the east of Uluru, and grew up at Areyonga in the Northern Territory. A Senior Traditional Owner for Uluru, she has worked as a school teacher, an Environmental and Cultural Management Consultant, Tour Guide, Artist and Pitjantjatjara Language teacher. A previous Maruku Chairperson, long time Uluru Kata Tjuta Board of Joint Management, Mutitjulu council (and former chair) and Health council member, Yuku stands strongly for her people´s traditional values as well as engaging in the challenges of current times.
Yuka Trigger has also been involved in the development of Mani Mani a theatrical interpretation of Tjukurpa from Pirupakalarintja, west of Uluru. Yuku is the senior dancer for Kuniya or Python Tjukurpa at Uluru as seen in the National Park Cultural Centre. She is an experienced wood carver and a recognised grass sculptor of Tjanpi Desert Weavers.
Her work was exhibited in the Art Gallery of South Australia in 2016-2017, and is also seen on the local Uluru shuttle bus.

Exhibitions:
2016 – Sappers & Shrapnel: Contemporary Art and the Art of the Trenches, Art Gallery South Australia (AGSA), Adeleide, SA.

Bibliography:
2016 – Sappers & Shrapnel: Contemporary Art and the Art of the Trenches | Zoe Freney | Preview (Article) | Art Guide | 09 November 2016.(https://artguide.com.au/both-diggers-and-artists-turn-conflict-into-art)

Judy Trigger Yuka - Kungkarangkalpa - The Seven Sisters X1878-19) 89x89cm, Acrylic on linen | Artists from the Central Desert | Maruku Arts, with Yuka Trigger   | Artsite Contemporary Gallery | 02 -24 November 2019 | Exhibition Archive

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