Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

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Untitled

How did you get to this style of painting?

“Do you mean, what have I done with my life? (chuckles to herself) To me these paintings are a sense of energy. So if I see someone and they’re happy, I paint a happy vibe. Cos their spirit is happy. And sometimes it’s hard because on the outside they’re real happy but on the inside they’re real sad. Sometimes you do stuff (like a painting) and it adds up later on. But I still don’t know what it means and don’t know where my style comes from because it’s both the path I walk on and the cracks in the dirt. It’s like looking at a landscape but I haven’t been there yet. Maybe I’ll get there one day. I believe things happen for a reason.”

– Sylvia Wilson

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Untitled

How did you get to this style of painting?

“Do you mean, what have I done with my life? (chuckles to herself) To me these paintings are a sense of energy. So if I see someone and they’re happy, I paint a happy vibe. Cos their spirit is happy. And sometimes it’s hard because on the outside they’re real happy but on the inside they’re real sad. Sometimes you do stuff (like a painting) and it adds up later on. But I still don’t know what it means and don’t know where my style comes from because it’s both the path I walk on and the cracks in the dirt. It’s like looking at a landscape but I haven’t been there yet. Maybe I’ll get there one day. I believe things happen for a reason.”

– Sylvia Wilson

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Untitled

How did you get to this style of painting?

“Do you mean, what have I done with my life? (chuckles to herself) To me these paintings are a sense of energy. So if I see someone and they’re happy, I paint a happy vibe. Cos their spirit is happy. And sometimes it’s hard because on the outside they’re real happy but on the inside they’re real sad. Sometimes you do stuff (like a painting) and it adds up later on. But I still don’t know what it means and don’t know where my style comes from because it’s both the path I walk on and the cracks in the dirt. It’s like looking at a landscape but I haven’t been there yet. Maybe I’ll get there one day. I believe things happen for a reason.”

– Sylvia Wilson

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Untitled

How did you get to this style of painting?

“Do you mean, what have I done with my life? (chuckles to herself) To me these paintings are a sense of energy. So if I see someone and they’re happy, I paint a happy vibe. Cos their spirit is happy. And sometimes it’s hard because on the outside they’re real happy but on the inside they’re real sad. Sometimes you do stuff (like a painting) and it adds up later on. But I still don’t know what it means and don’t know where my style comes from because it’s both the path I walk on and the cracks in the dirt. It’s like looking at a landscape but I haven’t been there yet. Maybe I’ll get there one day. I believe things happen for a reason.”

– Sylvia Wilson

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Untitled

How did you get to this style of painting?

“Do you mean, what have I done with my life? (chuckles to herself) To me these paintings are a sense of energy. So if I see someone and they’re happy, I paint a happy vibe. Cos their spirit is happy. And sometimes it’s hard because on the outside they’re real happy but on the inside they’re real sad. Sometimes you do stuff (like a painting) and it adds up later on. But I still don’t know what it means and don’t know where my style comes from because it’s both the path I walk on and the cracks in the dirt. It’s like looking at a landscape but I haven’t been there yet. Maybe I’ll get there one day. I believe things happen for a reason.”

– Sylvia Wilson

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Irrungadji

Martumili Artists work with over three hundred artists from remote Martu Aboriginal communities, including Punmu, Parnngurr, Kunawarritji, Jigalong, Irrungadji (Nullagine), and Warralong, as well as from the Parnpajinya (Newman) gallery and studio spaces. Known for their diverse, energetic, and unmediated painting styles, their works reflect the dramatic geography and scale of their homelands. Each artist, however, brings a unique approach to their craft.

Younger Martu artists often start painting alongside their parents, grandparents, and extended family, which fosters an organic learning process. This not only involves mastering painting techniques but also understanding specific locations, family histories, traditional ways of life, bush tucker, and Jukurrpa (Dreaming). Over time, with encouragement from their peers, they develop their own distinct styles and explore unique painting techniques and subject matter. In this work the artist brings a contemporary, evolving perspective to their work.

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Nyinyiri

“This is the rockhole and sandhills. ‘you do my country’ she (Mulyatingki) told me. She been born in that area. They used to drink that water [from the rockhole]. I ask Nancy (Mulyatingki’s sister) about it. They have a rockhole there, like a soak. They drink from it. I want to go there one day and take this mob (Dianne’s children).”

Nyinyiri is a small soak yulparirra (south) of Juntu-juntu (Canning Stock Route Well 30). This area is where Dianne’s mother (Mulyatingki Marney) – was born. It is Mulyatingki’s ngurra (home Country, camp), and forms part of the area which she knew intimately and travelled extensively with her family in her youth. Dianne knows Nyinyiri through her mother’s stories and paintings. 

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) 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 knowledge of water sources was critical for survival, and today Martu Country is still defined in terms of the location and type of water. Each of the hundreds of claypans, rockholes, waterholes, soaks and springs found in the Martu desert homelands is known by name, location, quality and seasonal availability through real life experience and the recounting of Jukurrpa (Dreaming) narratives. 

Soaks, or soakwaters, derive their name from the manner in which their waters generally seep into the sand from below stores, sometimes as part of an ephemeral river or creek. Soaks were an especially important source of water during the pujiman era, being the most dependable water source in times of drought. Water was obtained from soaks by scooping away the sand with a piti (timber bowls used for carrying food and water) until clear water gathered at the base of the hole, sometimes at a depth of several metres.

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Ngurra (home Country, camp)

“Ngurra (home Country, camp) is a very special Country- where we grew up. We go mostly out on Country and camp out. We go swimming and looking for honey on the trees. We would hunt turkey, emu, kangaroo, look for bardi (witchetty grub), honey ants, yellow berries. It’s an outstation. We call it home. We grew up there. Good memories of that place.” 

– Roxanne Newberry 

The Western Desert term ‘ngurra’ is hugely versatile in application. Broadly denoting birthplace and belonging, ngurra can refer to a body of water, a camp site, a large area of Country, or even a modern house. People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. This knowledge is traditionally passed intergenerationally through family connections. Country for Martu is full of memory; not just the memory of their own movement through it, but also of their family. As summarised by Ngalangka Nola Taylor, “painting the ngurra, they do it to remember their connections.” 

Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. Physical maintenance of one’s ngurra, like cultural maintenance, ensures a site’s wellbeing, and is a responsibility of the people belonging to that area.

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Untitled

Martumili Artists work with over three hundred artists from remote Martu Aboriginal communities, including Punmu, Parnngurr, Kunawarritji, Jigalong, Irrungadji (Nullagine), and Warralong, as well as from the Parnpajinya (Newman) gallery and studio spaces. Known for their diverse, energetic, and unmediated painting styles, their works reflect the dramatic geography and scale of their homelands. Each artist, however, brings a unique approach to their craft.

Younger Martu artists often start painting alongside their parents, grandparents, and extended family, which fosters an organic learning process. This not only involves mastering painting techniques but also understanding specific locations, family histories, traditional ways of life, bush tucker, and Jukurrpa (Dreaming). Over time, with encouragement from their peers, they develop their own distinct styles and explore unique painting techniques and subject matter. In this work the artist brings a contemporary, evolving perspective to their work.

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Wuukurta (Honey Ants)

Wuukurta (honey ants) are found in a variety of arid or semiarid environments, with nests of up to two metres deep and more than two metres across. Wuukurta are a highly sought after bush tucker, known otherwise as ‘bush lollies’ due to their sweet, honey like taste. They are eaten whilst still alive by holding the head and legs between two fingers and biting off the thorax. Martu dig for wuukurta nests through the seasons, but they are known to be especially abundant following the rains.

During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) 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. Whilst desert life has moved away from mobile hunter-gatherer subsistence throughout the course of the twentieth century, bush tucker continues to be a significant component of the modern Martu diet. Hunting and gathering bush tucker remains equally valuable as an important cultural practice that is passed on intergenerationally. Though hunting and gathering implements have been modernised, methods of harvesting, tracking and the use of fire burning to drive animals from their retreats are still commonly practiced today.