Nyukana Baker (d), Emily Kame Kngwarreye (D), Lawrence Leslie (d), Yipati Kuyata (d)
Artists' works from the Janet Holmes à Court Collection from the Ernabella, Kamilaroi and Utopia Communities.
About the artists
Nyukana Baker (1943 Pukatja / Ernabella, South Australia - 2016)
was an exceptional textile artist and painter working in the Central Australian community of Ernabella. At Ernabella, Nyukana Baker began painting in 1963. In 1975 she travelled to Indonesia to the Yogyakarta Batik Institute. Here she participated in a workshop of batik techniques which can be seen in the Batik on silk artwork on display in the exhibition. In 1983 Baker travelled to Osaka to the Museum of Ethnology where she learnt printmaking techniques. Throughout her career she developed exceptional artistic skill as a forerunner in the success of Ernabella Arts, imparting diverse knowledge and skills on to the younger generation of the Pukatja community. Baker was crucial in leading artists within the community in traditions of batik printing and the transfer of milpatjunanyi (sand drawings) onto silk and cottons. Baker was prolific throughout her career, also working across the media of loom weaving, screen printing, ceramics, prints and basketry.
Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996, Utopia, Central Australia)
is renowned as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists. Kngwarreye had a remarkably late engagement in art making (beginning in her seventies), but a lifetime of ritual, ceremony and artistic activity. The last decade of Kngwarreye’s life was one of prolific and energetic creation, launching her, and Utopia, onto the global stage. Kngwarreye’s artwork responds to her place of birth, Alhalkere, picturing the organic vitality of the land, its dreaming, its flora (such as yams), the patterns made by emu tracks, its indigenous cosmology, ceremonial sand and body markings and environmental and seasonal transformations. Kngwarreye was a founding member of the Utopia Women’s Batik Group, established in 1978. Her batik designs make for insights into her broader practice, with many enduring into the mark making of her paintings to come. Kngwarreye was instrumental in the land claim using batik artwork for the Anmatyerr and Alyawarr peoples to gain freehold title to Utopia and in the ongoing financial viability of the artistic output of the community. The batik on silk included in this exhibition, from 1989, is exemplary of her style as she came to the end of her practice with batik and launched into painting.
About the artists
Lawrence Leslie (1952 Gunnedah, New South Wales – 2011)
was a member of the Kamilaroi community from Moree (North-West New South Wales). His interest in screen printing began in 1982, when he helped Leigh Purcell print posters. He then went on to create original designs which he and Leigh printed on paper and t-shirts. His designs caught the attention of fashion designer Linda Jackson, who he worked for briefly – developing skills with colour and refining print practices. Capturing both the attention of the art and fashion worlds, Leslie’s artwork was concerned with the language, artefacts and culture of the Kamilaroi people and his designs recall the rivers and land formations.
Yipati Kuyata (1946, Ernabella, South Australia – 1992)
lived and worked at Ernabella Arts. Her artworks include batik and screen-printing and feature practices such as food gathering on Pitjantjatjara lands and subjects from Piltati Dreaming. Kuyata joined Ernabella Arts Inc. in 1965 where she began painting and weaving. In 1975 Kuyata developed batik skills on a trip to Indonesia to the Yogyakarta Batik Institute with fellow artists Nyukana Baker and Jillian Davey. The skills learnt in Indonesia were widely shared with artists in Pukatja and in surrounding communities. This established an artistic tradition. Ernabella Arts are especially well known and celebrated for their batik tulis techniques featuring fluid and non-geometric patterning using the tjanting tool and a style known as Ernabella Walka. Kuyata is one of the early proponents of these techniques.
About the COLLECTION
Three artists have created intensely coloured flowing batik designs on substantial lengths of silk, detailing the flora from their lands. These textiles are not only united by the batik technique but also in the rich, warm and fiery hues of the land used to picture their subject matter. There is bold and flowing patterning, complex forms, forms showing evidence of the hand in the making process and a considered approach to design. There is a synergy between the works, despite the geographical distance between Utopia and Ernabella. The works each speak of the land and a culture of connection to Country through its flora, fauna, peoples and the very act of sitting down and working with hot wax on silk.
Connected to these ideas, as a further code in parallel, is the screenprint by Lawrence Leslie. This work features a river motif inspired by the Mehi river in the Moree region of New South Wales and printed in the bold and playful contemporary style characteristic of Leslie. Together, these works are part of a bigger story of sustaining traditions in textile art making within First Nations communities.
Acknowledgements & Collaborators
Janet Holmes à Court and the Ernabella, Kamilaroi and Utopia Communities.
Exhibiting at
Holmes à Court Gallery @No.10
Situated in the heart of The Pickle District in Gooyaman, West Perth.
Address
10 Douglas Street, West Perth, WA 6005