111582286887

Published by on



Untitled

“When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see a colourful painting and wonder what it is, but that’s how Martu tell story long ago. It’s not just a lovely painting, it’s a story and a songline and a history and everything that goes with it.” 

– Ngalangka Nola Taylor and Joshua Booth

This work portrays an area of Country that can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, the image may be read as an aerial representation of a particular location known to the artist- either land that they or their family travelled, from the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era to now. During the pujiman period, Martu would traverse very large distances annually in small family groups, moving seasonally from water source to water source, and hunting and gathering bush tucker as they went. At this time, one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi (water), tali (sandhills), different varieties of warta (trees, vegetation), ngarrini (camps), and jina (tracks) are typically recorded with the use of a use of a system of iconographic forms universally shared across the desert. 

An additional layer of meaning in the work relates to more intangible concepts; life cycles based around kalyu (rain, water) and waru (fire) are also often evident. A thousands of year old practice, fire burning continues to be carried out as both an aid for hunting and a means of land management today. As the Martu travelled and hunted they would burn tracts of land, ensuring plant and animal biodiversity and reducing the risk of unmanageable, spontaneous bush fires. The patchwork nature of regrowth is evident in many landscape works, with each of the five distinctive phases of fire burning visually described with respect to the cycle of burning and regrowth.  

Finally, metaphysical information relating to a location may also be recorded; Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives chronicle the creation of physical landmarks, and can be referenced through depictions of ceremonial sites, songlines, and markers left in the land. Very often, however, information relating to Jukurrpa is censored by omission, or alternatively painted over with dotted patterns.

Name: Sharon Porter


Language: Ngaanyatjarra


Community: Tjukurla


Biography:

"I like to paint my grandmother’s Country around Kiwirrkurra. I was painting for a long time in Tjukurla. I like to paint with all the ladies, sitting around painting all together.” 

- Sharon Porter

Sharon Porter is part of the new generation of Martumili Artists. Inspired by the wisdom and creative legacy of the most senior and established artists in the group, these young and emerging artists are moving desert art forward in innovative and experimental directions.

Born in Alice Springs, Sharon grew up moving between remote desert communities along the Western Australian and Northern Territory borders; Kintore, Tjukurla, Warakuna and Kaltukatjarra (also known as Docker River). At this time, she lived principally with her grandfather, Anatjari Tjakamarra (dec.), and grandmother, Katjarra Butler- both celebrated artists in their own right. More recently, Sharon has been living in Kunawarritji with her aunt and fellow Martumili Artist, Roma Gibson.

Sharon learned to paint organically, watching her grandfather and grandmother at work and in this way absorbing their distinctive techniques and styles. In her own paintings, elements of Anatjari and Katjarra’s styles can be identified, with her bold, unrestrained geometric designs reminiscent of her grandmother’s work, and her intricate patterning paying homage to her grandfather’s style.

As stated by Sharon, she paints principally about her grandmother’s Country in the Kiwirrkurra area. Kiwirrkurra is a rockhole located in the tali (sandhill) Country of the Gibson Desert, to the south west of Lake McKay. An Aboriginal community by the same name is now located nearby, to the west of the water source.


© the artist / art centre