Kathryn Queama: Ngura Kulintjaku
(Understanding Country)

Kathryn Queama is Minyma Anangu, a Pitjantjatjara woman from Australia’s Central Desert. Ngura Kulintjaku (Understanding Country) is Queama’s first solo exhibition at Artsite Contemporary.

An established punu (wood carving) artist, Queama has been exhibited across Australia as well as in New York City, Venice, and Dakar. Taught by her mother-in-law – Nyinku Kulitja – Queama’s traditional skills have been handed down through the Tjukurpa.

Tjukurpa is the foundation of Anangu culture and a link to the environment and ancestors. Tjukurpa stories are inherited and include guidelines for management of country, laws, and maps.

Many of Queama’s paintings focus on the Tjukurpa of the Seven Sisters. In fleeing from the cunning Wati Nyiru, the sisters travelled far and wide, forming the landscape and embedding survival knowledge within it.

Queama’s forms, symbols, and patterns reflect the Tjukurpa passed on by her family as well as her own new ways of articulating generational knowledge.

Queama’s work is the contemporary expression of an art form that has been evolving for countless years.

Ngura Kulintjaku will run from 25 June to 23 July, including NAIDOC Week.