Status: Stock
My Country
12th November – 20th December 2003
Boutwell Draper Gallery
Name: Nyuju Stumpy Brown (Dec)
Biography:
Nyuju was one of the senior artists at Mangkaja until her passing in 2011. Her effervescent, intuitive and brightly hued paintings reflected a spritely and engaging character that believes the hardships and cultural dislocation that Nyuju experienced in her long life. Perhaps the hardest of all was being removed from her ancestral lands around Ngapawarlu on the Canning Stock Route in the Great Sandy Desert. Nyuju’s relationship to her country was at the very core of her work.
At a young age Nyuju was taken by her Uncle to the Catholic mission at Balgo Hills beyond the south east edge of the Kimberley. Here she learnt kartiya (white people) ways before moving to Fitzroy Crossing where she grew up and remained most of her life. She was the mother of three daughters by her late husband Pukulu and went on to marry another Mangkaja artist Hitler Pamba. She worked as a domestic at both Emmanuel and Bohemia Downs Stations, “We got no money for work. We got tea, meat and tobacco”. Within Mangkaja Nyuju not only enjoyed the companionship of other artists but also the earnings made from the sale of her work, which was a vastly contrasting experience of the first white contact she experienced on Stations.
Nyuju was deeply involved with Wangkajunga law and tradition and was a leader of nyanpi or ceremonies. It was the intense knowledge of law and her love of the land that she poured into her artwork. Nyuju was one a of a number of senior artists who painted the two huge Ngurrara canvases in 1996 to be used in a land rights action brought by people living in and around Fitzroy Crossing claiming some 800,000 hectares of Crown Land in the Great Sandy Desert from where they had been driven off in the 1950s and 1960s. These enormous ‘maps’ of the country show all the ‘living’ freshwater holes (jila) of these people across the expanse of the desert.
Statement from Nyulu in 2003: “My paintings are about my country, my mothers’ country and my fathers’ country. I didn’t know my mother and my father. I lost them when I was young. We lived in desert country.
I paint the waterholes and bush tucker found at those waterholes. We were living on bush tucker in the desert, on bush tucker only. I paint about the time before we knew kartiya. We were frightened of kartiya, we would hide behind the bushes because they might shoot us. Because we didn’t know white people we were afraid. We didn’t know what aeroplanes were, that noise was frightening, we hid down behind the bushes.
My country is in the desert, the Great Sandy Desert. I lived in the desert with my mother and father but when I lost them I was found by Wally Darlington (Uncle) and he took me to the mission in Balgo. We were naked ‘till we got to Balgo, the missionaries give us clothes there. We learned about kartiya there at the mission in Balgo.
The places I paint, Marntilajarra, Kurrkumalu, Kuwiyalpa, Larrikulu, Ngutukurangu, Nyirla, Walpa and Wararwara are some of the waterholes in my country. We collected water with marnma (coolaman) by digging the ground with it and then using that same tool to carry the water. We passed through rocky country and sandhill country. After the rain there was water lying in rock holes. There was also water lying on the surface, lakes formed in claypans on the plain country. There were plenty of places to drink in the wet time. After it dries a bit we had to dig for water at juljulpa (soakwater) and carry it with us.
Since we got the shed at Mangkaja in Fitzroy Crossing I have been painting more than before. I can paint there a lot. Other artists are there and we can talk about those time in the desert and other things that were common with our people. I like that Mangkaja shed because other people are painting there too. I can share the history of our culture and our times in the desert and coming out of the desert to live.
There have been a lot of changes in the way we live now and painting is part of that change. Painting helps with the changes that have happened. My painting is important to my people because we don’t have to worry about what people are doing. We can sell paintings and not rely on bush tucker to live.
Although we live in Fitzroy Crossing and at Wangkatjunga now, the connection with the desert is alive within our culture. It is my country that I paint, my fathers’ country and my mothers’ country.”
PAINTING THEMES: Waterholes, Desert Country, Bush Tucker
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2003 | Nyuju Stumpy Brown – My Country | Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney, NSW |
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2014 Cory/Molly/Stumpy Red Dot Gallery, Singapore
2012 | Mangkaja Arts 21 Year Anniversary Wirrinyiya ngaragngarag birra ngamoo ngamoo | Tandanya, Adelaide, SA |
2012 | Papers | Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA |
2012 | Origins – Early works on paper from founding Mangkaja Artists | Redot Gallery, Singapore |
2009 | Senior Artists from Fitzroy Crossing | Suzanne O’Connell Gallery, Brisbane, QLD |
2009 | Mangkaja Survey Show | Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA |
2008 | Women On Country | Suzanne O’Connell Gallery, Brisbane, QLD |
2008 | Waterholes and Bush Tucker | Bridget McDonnell Hampton Gallery, VIC |
2008 | Marnintu Maparnana [Women Painting] | ReDot Gallery, Singapore |
2008 | Divas of The Desert | Gallery Gondwana, Sydney, NSW |
2007 | Palya Art in Melbourne | The Barn, Melbourne, VIC |
2007 | Women Artists of Fitzroy Crossing | Raft Artspace, Darwin, NT |
2007 | Jila, Jilji and Miyi – Mangkaja Arts | Cool-Art Gallery, Coolum Beach, QLD |
2007 | New Legend | KALACC and William Mora Galleries |
2006 | Divas of the Desert | Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT |
2006 | Mangkaja Group Show | Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney, NSW |
2005 | Jiljijanka Marnin [Women from the Sandhills] | Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC |
2005 | Group Show | Raft Artspace, Darwin, NT |
2005 | Too Much Good Work | Raft Artspace, Darwin, NT |
2005 | Surprise; Cory & Friends | ReDot Gallery, Singapore |
2005 | True Colours - Recent works from Fitzroy Crossing | Queensland College of Art Gallery, Grif?th University, QLD |
2004 | Ngurrara Canvas | Perth Concert Hall, Perth International Arts Festival, WA
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2003 | National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Art Award | Museum & Art Gallery of NT, Darwin |
2003 | Jila, Jumu, Jiwari & Wirrkuja | Cullity Gallery, University of Western Australia |
2003 | Mangkaja Marninwarnti | Raft Artspace, Darwin, NT |
2002 | Group Show | Flinders Lane Gallery, Artmob, Hobart, TAS |
2001 | Mangkaja Arts 10 Years On 10 Year Anniversary Exhibition | Tandanya, National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA |
2001 | Ngurrara Canvas | National Gallery of Australia, ACT |
2001 | Fitzroy Women | Short St Gallery, Broome, WA |
1999 | Ngurrara | Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA |
1998 | Group Exhibition | Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London |
1997 | Group Exhibition | Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW |
1996 | Heritage Commision Art Award | Old Parliament House, Canberra, ACT |
1996 | Mangkaja Group Exhibition | Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW |
1995 | Group Exhibition | Australian Perspectives Gallery, Brisbane, QLD |
1995 | Kimberley Art | Melbourne, VIC |
1994 | Ngajakurra Ngurrara Minyarti, this is my country | Festival of Perth, Artspace Gallery, Perth |
1993 | Images of Power: Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley | National Gallery of Victoria |
1993 | Mangkaja Women | Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth, WA |
1992 | Group Show | Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW |
1991 | Karrayili | Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA |
COLLECTIONS:
National Museum of Australia
National Gallery of Victoria
Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia
Northern Territory University
PUBLICATIONS:
2009 | FORM and the National Museum of Australia Canning Stock Route Project: Ngurra Kuju Walyja, One Country One People |
2004 | National Gallery of Victoria Colour Power: Aboriginal art post 1984
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2003 | Boutwell Draper Gallery Nyuju Stumpy Brown – My Country |
2001 | National Aboriginal Cultural Institute - Tandanya Painting Up Big, Ngurrara Canvas, Kaltja Now |
2000 | IATSIS Canberra Karrayili – The History of Karrayili Adult Education Centre |
2000 | Oxford University Press & ANU Ngurrara Entry/Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art |
1998 | Video Documentary/SBS Television Jila Painted Waters of the Great Sandy Desert |
1996 | Kimberley Aboriginal Law & Culture Centre Publication Yirra: Land Law and Language, Strong and Alive |
1994 | This is My Country – Exhibition catalogue Ngajakurra Ngurrara Minyarti |
1993 | Exhibition Catalogue Images of Power: Aboriginal Art From The Kimberley |
1993 | Exhibition Catalogue Mangkaja Women |
1991 | Exhibition Catalogue Karriyili: Ten Years On |
Jungkut Billabong “This is next to Tarpu Jila this billabong. When raining time this place fills up with ngapa (water) every year I come back here and camp in the Jilji and go hunting and Read more…
