Contemporary Australia: Women

57 The Queensland Art Gallery commissioned this group of paintings from the women of Tjala Arts in Amata, South Australia, in response to an exhibition in 2011 at Raft Artspace in Alice Springs. The exhibition, ‘Ngayulu itini ngayukuy mamaku tjukurpa. Ngayulu witini ngayuku ngunytjuku tjukurpa. I hold my Father’s story. I hold my Mother’s story’, celebrated the life of Kunmanara Raymond, a much-loved young man who died tragically in a car accident. The artists involved in the exhibition stated, ‘we made them [the paintings] in a special way to make him proud . . . we will remember him all the time — even though our hearts are broken.’ 1 In the seven paintings featured in ‘Contemporary Australia: Women’, the Amata community painters continue in this spirit, exploring dynamic, fresh, stylistic expressions of their culture and ngura (country) on canvas. Amata community is located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands of north-western South Australia, near the Northern Territory border. The community is a couple of hours drive from Yulara, along a red dirt road that skirts the base of Uluru — magnificent in its massive scale and dramatic beauty. The flat landscape is dotted with rounded clumps of spinifex, sparse desert oaks and soft grasses, a palette of sage and silver contrasting with the rich, red colour of the earth. The first discernible hills appear like a mirage on the horizon, signalling one’s arrival in Amata, which lies cradled within their protective circle. In 1997, Minymaku Arts (meaning ‘belonging to women’) was set up in Amata, but soon both men and women were painting there, using abstract imagery adapted from traditional symbols and concepts. In 2005, the centre was renamed Tjala Arts, for the ancestral honey ant whose tracks wind through the Amata valley. The honey ant is the Tjukurpa (Dreaming/Law) 2 for Amata and also a favourite bush food of locals. Tjala Arts is now the hub of activity in the Amata community, and a leader in the vibrant Western Desert painting movement currently reinvigorating Australian contemporary art. Importantly, Tjala Arts fosters intergenerational cultural learning, and programs have been introduced to bring young people to the centre. Both cultural knowledge and painting techniques are taught in the painting studio, often by working collaboratively. This is demonstrated in this group of seven paintings where grandmothers, their daughters and grandchildren, along with other family members, have painted together to produce what the artists regard as their most significant body of work to date. Nita Williamson, one of the artists, speaks of painting with her mother Ruby Tjangawa Williamson: I love painting with my mother. We work in such a strong way together. My mother’s way is different to mine, I work with wooden sticks. Together our work is brilliant because we are happy making work together. 3 In Puli murpu ( Mountain range) 2011 and Ngayuku ngura (My country) Puli murpu (Mountain range) 2012, Ruby Tjangawa Williamson, Nita Williamson and granddaughter Suzanne Armstrong paint both aerial and side views of mountains in the Musgrave Ranges behind Amata. Blue areas depict kapi tjukula, the life‑giving fresh water found there in rock holes. In Amata, there are distinct painting families, but for this project Ruby Tjangawa Williamson and Wawiriya Burton, two senior artists have come together for the first time to paint Punu 2011 — each bringing their own aesthetic and colour preferences to the work in a vibrant, painterly ‘dance’, which depicts two trees — ultukumpu and kalingkalingpa — from their birth country near Irrunytju, Western Australia. Punu is also the name for wooden artefacts with marks burnt into them in repetitive curves — abstract patterns that have now been adapted for painting. The land itself is a rich source of inspiration for these talented women. Elder Frank Young has described how artists living in their communities have access to the art painted on the rock walls of caves by their ancestors and can bring these stories to the surface in their paintings. As he observed, ‘Our stories are strongest when we paint in our country.’ 4 The hills Wawiriya Burton Australia b.1925 Pitjantjatjara people Angela Burton Australia b.1968 Pitjantjatjara people (Collaborating artist) Maureen Douglas Australia b.1966 Pitjantjatjara people (Collaborating artist) Mingkiri Tjukurpa (Mice Dreaming) (detail) 2011 Synthetic polymer paint on linen 197 x 196cm Amata painters Amata painters Minyma kamingku, Ngunytjungku, tjitjingku palantja titutjara ngaraku wiyarinytja wiya The three generations working together — our way will never end