When I was a young girl I was walking with my jaja ( grandmother) and japi (grandfather). I said to them “Look there is water there, I am thirsty”. My grandfather said ” No, that is not water, that is yirrirriny, (heat haze). Yirrirriny is a heat wave, don’t look at it, it will blind your eyes. Thats what my japi (grandfather) used to tell me. The heatwave is shiny and dancing.
Name: EVA NARGOODAH
Language: Walmajarri
Community: Jimbalakudunj
Biography:
I was born on Christmas Creek Station and grew up with my parents until the age of six. My dad was a stockman and my mother worked in the house. I was taken away to GoGo Station where my great-grandmother lived. We moved there with the manager from Christmas Creek. His name was Vic Johns. At GoGo Station my father worked at the stock camp again and my mother in the house
Next we shifted to Cherrabun Station where I went to school in 1965 at the men’s quarter. I moved to many different places. From Cherrubun we went back to Christmas Creek. I did my next years at school in Derby and worked at Christmas Creek school as a teacher. In 1984 I was married. I have nine children and nine grandchildren.
I started painting after my kids grew up. I paint my grandmother’s country and what she has taught me. I paint my style of seasons, bush tucker paintings and my childhood memories of winter rains and cold weather
Today I live at Jimbalakudunj Community, 120 km southwest of Fitzroy Crossing.
PAINTING THEMES:
Seasons and mungarri [food]
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2011 | Eva Nargoodah | Tunbridge Gallery, Margaret River, WA |
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2012 | Mangkaja Arts 21 Year Anniversary Wirrinyiya ngaragngarag birra ngamoo ngamoo | Tandanya, Adelaide, SA |
2012 | Prints & Papers | Nomad Art, Darwin & Canberra |
2011 | Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair | Darwin |
2009 | Artworks on Paper | Papyrus Gallery, Blue Mountains, NSW |
2009 | Margaret River Meets Fitzroy Crossing | Tunbridge Gallery, Margaret River, WA |
2009 | Emerging and Re-emerging | Outstation, Darwin, NT |
2009 | Eva Nargoodah with Rosie Tarco | Tunbridge Gallery, Margaret River, WA |
2008 | Revealed | Central TAFE, Perth, WA |
2008 | Mangkaja Arts | A P Bond Art Dealer, Adelaide, SA |
2008 | Divas of the Desert | Gallery Gondwana, Sydney, NSW |
2008 | Marnintu Maparnana [Women Painting] | ReDot Gallery, Singapore |
2007 | Women Artists of Fitzroy Crossing | Raft Artspace, Darwin, NT |
2005 | Wangkatjungka | Short St Gallery, Broome, WA |
2005 | True Colours | Suzanne O’Connell Australian Indigenous Art with Dell Gallery, Grif?th University, Brisbane, QLD |
2005 | 22nd Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award | Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory |
2003 | Group Show | Japinga Gallery, Fremantle, WA |
2003 | Wangkatjungka | Short St Gallery, Broome, WA |
2002 | Group Show | Short St Gallery, Broome, WA |
2001 | Fremantle Print Award | Fremantle Art Centre, Perth, WA |
1999 | Story Boards Ceramic Tiles from the Kimberley | Fremantle Art Centre, Perth, WA |
1995 | Mangkaja: Old Mangkaja, New Prints | Australian Print Workshop Gallery, Melbourne, VIC |
PUBLIC ART:
2012 | Fitzroy Crossing Police Station – Painting on Canvas |
2010 | Fitzroy Crossing Swimming Pool |
2008 | Fitzroy Valley Learning Centre – painting on canvas, perforated metal screen design |
2007 | Fitzroy Valley Hospital |
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE:
2008: Fitzroy Valley Education Centre - small canvases project
COLLECTIONS:
National Gallery of Victoria Fitzroy Crossing High School Fitzroy Crossing Hospital
PUBLICATIONS:
2008: Exhibition catalogue, Central TAFE WA, DCA, DIR
Revealed
1995: Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
Mangkaja: Old Mangkaja New Prints
POSITIONS HELD:
2011: Vice Chairperson, Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency
Tutujarti Trees (Desert Walnut) Tutujarti trees all around the two waterhole called Nyijil Nyijil, that way out in the desert; That’s my family country, my family comes from the desert. It has a nut called Read more…
Jurnta (Bush Onion) JURNTA that we digem up from the ground sometime we eat it raw or sometime we throw in the coals
Bush Onion (Jurnta) This country Booloowatu. My community grows bush onions. During the dry season jurnta goes black. This means they are ripe (cooked) and ready to dig up and cook on the coals. The Read more…