Lifelands: Artist Gurruwiwi’s North, North Eastern Coasts & Tjungurrayi’s Western Desert Country
Helen Read
Visiting artists in remote communities across NW Australia through Palya Air Art Tours. Viewing and purchasing artworks directly from artists' owned Art Centres and through Palya Art exhibitions and online gallery.
Aerial and 3D perspectives combined, these two distinctive, culturally and stylistically diverse paintings vibrate with thousands of years accumulated knowledge.
Above left is John Mandjuwi Gurruwiwi’s ‘Wurrkadi & Maranydjalk’ natural ochre pigment on linen painting, Palya Art No. 0290. A Galpu and Dhangu language speaker John Mandjuwi Gurruwiwi – who’s homeland ‘Gika’ is situated on a mangrove beach facing North across the Nalawarung Straits in far North Northern Territory, Eastern Arnhem Land, said, in part, to Elcho Island Arts & Crafts back in 1997 of this painting, “This is my totem and I am part of Galpu Clan. The painting is about the Wurrkadi. The Wurrkadi come out from the ground because they smell the yams and eat it. The Birrtji Gundirr, the dots along the straight lines, represent the hills and the edible clay”.
Speaking Pintupi from the Western Deserts of inner Australia, George Ward Tjungurrayi’s polymer pigment painting, above right, Palya Art No. 2028HR, emanates the artists’ soul-soaked understanding of country also. Navigation, nourishment and celebration; cultural, spiritual and physical life – elements connected and alive, portrayed in shimmering beauty.
You are welcome to join me flying across Arnhem Land this July with Palya Art Tours. You may also like to visit Palya Art’s Online Gallery, or see the artworks in person at Palya Art’s South Melbourne Gallery
Text: Helen Read. This article first appeared on www.palya.com.au on the 22nd April 2018.
Helen Read is an artist and former nurse-pilot for the Pintupi Homelands Health Service in Walungurru (Kintore), Kiwirrkurra, Gibson Desert, Central Australia.
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