EDWARD BLITNER

Edward Blitner

Edward started painting when he was seven years old. “My Grandfathers, Fred, Gerry and Donald would be painting or carving and we kids would sit around them and watch them grind the ochre’ s and mix the colours, after a while they would tell us the story and teach us the songs and dance for that particular painting. When one of them was in a very good mood, he let us paint the sides of the bark painting. That was my start”. Eddie has progressed as a highly recognized contemporary artist. He has worked with school children and street children alike, teaching them his painting skills and techniques.

Edward Blitner was born in 1961 and is from Naiyalrindji and the community Ngukkurr on the Roper River, which is approximately 270 km Southeast of Katherine, N.T. It is now called the Yugul Mangl Community.Many good painters have emerged from that community and are represented in most major Australian and overseas galleries.

It has taken Eddy 16 years to learn to paint the stories and the Dreamings, passed on to him by his grandfathers. Edward is also an accomplished woodcarver and didjeridu maker. Some of Eddy’s bird carvings stand 2 meters high and are fully decorated and cross hatched.

Other members of his clan (Barbil) taught him how to make flint spear heads, traditional hunting boomerangs and, most importantly, how to hunt, fish, find bush tucker and make bush medicine to survive. Interestingly, as a child, Eddie was a part of the famous Gurunji Walk Off, which resulted in the equal wages for Indigenous Station workers.