Air

Albert Namatjira Arrernte people Born 1902, Hermannsburg, Northern Territory, Australia; died 1959, Alice Springs, Northern Territory Albert Namatjira made the species of ghost gum common on Arrernte Country — Corymbia aparrerinja — a national icon. Namatjira was taught to paint in watercolour by visiting Melbourne artist Rex Batterbee during the mid-1930s and went on to make the medium his own, re-imaging his cultural inheritance and sharing his knowledge of Country broadly. Namatjira was renowned in his lifetime and served as inspiration to future generations of artists. This includes many family members, among them his grandson, Albert Namatjira Jnr. Inspiration has its origins in the act of breathing in — to inspire. Inspiration creates life, movement and energy. In Namatjira’s compositions, the ghost gum conveys this dancing sense of movement. The trees’ white trunks twist and arch, narrowing into graceful branches and finally elegant arrays of leaves. Namatjira describes the glowing bark in a faint wash of gently dappled mauve or yellow ochre, the white of the paper beneath still shining through, and brushstrokes convey the bleeding and pooling of the watercolour pigment. The gums in Namatjira’s watercolours often display multiple trunks emerging from a single lignotuber. In their companionable habit and sharing of resources, the ghost gums suggest the larger interdependence of all lifeforms — the environment we share with each other, and with the plants and trees as they replenish the air we breathe. In finding a new way to describe his traditional Country in radiant veils of watercolour, Albert Namatjira and the many artists he has inspired are shaping the way generations of Australians imagine this beautiful landscape. GB Albert Namatjira / Untitled (Central Australian landscape) c.1955–59 105 104 Shared Shared