WHERE DO WE SOURCE OUR ABORIGINAL PIECES?
TINGARI ARTS | ALICE SPRINGS
MEET LINX MACPHERSON
I arrived in Alice Springs in February 2000, like many people, just for one year and then planned to return to my life in Sydney.18 years later I left!
Prior to Alice my life was very varied, including being involved in the Australian Open Tennis Championships, The Torvill & Dean World Tour, the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Bolshoi Ballet and the Australian thoroughbred racing and breeding industries.Most of these involved spending a lot of my life travelling internationally and, by 1999, I just wanted to get off the ‘merry-go-round’ so moved to Alice.
In Sydney I used to walk past galleries and loved the Western Desert art, especially works by the Ikuntji artists, Narputta Nangala and Mitjili Napurrula but didn’t imagine I would ever be able to purchase them.
Little did I know I would soon be working with them on a daily basis for many years and that Narputta Nangala would become my ‘grandmother’.
Soon after arriving in Alice Springs I was lucky to meet some wonderful Aboriginal artists and began working with them immediately. As they recommended other artists work with me I became more and more immersed in the art and their lives.
In 2001, at a Women’s Law and Culture Meeting in Wataru, a small South Australian community near the Western Australian and Northern Territory borders I was given the honour of being initiated with the skin name ‘Nungurrayi’. I then became ‘family’ to many artists and their families.
My day to day life became making breakfast and lunch for the artists and their families, prepare the Belgian linen, mix the paints and help them in their dealings with government organisations. I was very proud my place became known as ‘the safe place’ and privileged to watch the artists create their ‘magic’ whilst listening to their amazing stories.
I found it fascinating an artist would choose which linen canvas they would like to use and immediately sit down and begin painting. There was no taking time to contemplate how to balance the space, it was just innate in them to do so. Watching Mitjili Napurrula was truly amazing. She would sit at the top of the canvas (on it) and keep pushing herself backwards down the canvas as she kept painting her story. She didn’t look behind her to check where the end was and every painting was perfectly balanced.
Over my 18 years in Central Australia I’ve been privileged to work with many artists including (but not limited to) Walala Tjapaltjarri and his brothers, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri and Thomas Tjapaltjarri plus Gloria Petyarre, Kathleen Petyarre, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Narputta Nangala Jugadai (and her daughters Daisy Napaltjarri Jugadai and Molly Napaltjarri Jugadai), Mitjili Napurrula, Linda Syddick Napaltjarri, Josie Petrick Kemarre, Lilly Kelly Napangardi and George Ward Tjungurrayi.
I will be forever grateful being fortunate to be immersed in the world of these amazing people, their stories and astounding art.
Click here for further information on Tingari Arts.
eastern desert arts | red gum
Eastern Desert Art is an outback Indigenous online art gallery representing the work of significant Aboriginal artists from Utopia, Atitjere and Irriliree in central Australia. Situated at Red Gum 270kms north east of Alice Springs south of Arlparra, it is run
by Sonja Chalmers.
The Chalmers family’s relationship with the Aboriginal people extends back three generations and many of the Aboriginal artists who live on Utopia grew up alongside the Chalmers family. Eastern Desert Art runs regular painting workshops for the local artists at Red Gum.
The central desert region of Utopia has produced such great artists as Emily Kame Kngwarreye and Gloria Petyarre and is now celebrating a resurgence with other greats – Mary Kemarre Morton, Kathleen Ngala, Angelina Pwerle Ngala, Gladdy Kemarre, Susie Pitjara Hunter, Joy Kngwarreye Jones and Dolly Petyarre Mills.
The Eastern Desert Arts collection is vast and unique, featuring many varied, contemporary pieces, pushing the envelope on what is traditionally thought of as indigenous art.