Categories: Mangkaja Arts
Name: Hanson Pye
Language: Walmajarri
Community: Mulan
Biography:
Hanson Pye is a Walmajarri traditional owner and the present-day senior custodian for Parnkupirti (Sturt Creek) which runs into Paruku (Lake Gregory) deep with in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. Falling Star song is the Walmajarri creation story for the lake: the star rose in the east (at Mount Doreen), fell into the lake and was changed into a man, the ancestral hero Kiki. Also head ranger for Paruku IPA at Mulan community, his Father was Frank Clancy and Grandfather Boxer Milner past senior artists from Warlayirti Art centre.
Hanson conceptualises stories of his country in his own unique style.
Hanson was part of the exhibition and publication Desert Lake: art, science, and stories of paruku launched at Araluen centre in 2013. His interactions with the strands of the project led him to conceptualise in paint the Walmajarri world view. Called Parnkupirti Layers, it refers concurrently to the layered revelations of the excavation site on the banks of the Parnkupiti Creek (feeding the lake from the east) and their confirmation of the Waljirri, the foundation of Walmajarri life in the area. The dark bottom layer of the painting is “where my ancestors been sitting … making tools, spearheads, camping, they been singing corroboree.” The lighter upper layer is “the whole area where we’re living now” in the kuwarri (present day). The two are inseparable. Parnkupirti Creek 2012 painted with James Brown is included in Nevada Museum of Art collection. The five panel painting maps the tracks of a male and female dingo, where they consume an emu, to the right where the dogs dive into the earth, which creates a soak, or waterhole, that is the source of water for Sturt Creek, and eventually the lake. It also displays language boundaries, and an historical massacre site, and food foraged on the journey. An earlier version of this painting hangs in the office of the Paruku Rangers.
Hanson made a come back to painting in 2022 while residing at Fitzroy Crossing interpreting his stories of country with further experimentation of his contemporary style.
