Artist:Wenten Rubunija
Area: Alice Springs
Language:Arrernte

Title: Honey Ant Dreaming
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

Size: 35 x 23″

Description:
The painting is personally signed on the back ”Wenten Rubuntja”
Original Aboriginal art gallery label on back with artist Name and price.

COA included

A beautiful orignal Aboriginal painting by well listed Australian Aboriginal artist Wenten (Wenton) Rubuntja (1926-2005). Highly sought after investment art work and very collectible artist.

Wenten Rubuntja’s paintings all had hidden meanings and at the same time continuous themes that documented both his career and his culture. His water colors had specific Dreamtime connections and his dot paintings had contemporary meaning as well as the traditional. He was a thinking man.

Wenten Rubuntja, an Arrente person, Living in Alice Springs, grew up at Telegraphy Station, worked as a timber cutter and drover at stations across Central Australia. Albert Namatjira was his father’s cousin and call himself Wenten’s uncle, he taught Wenten Rubuntja to paint in response to the boy’s interest.

He painted both Hermannsburg landscape watercolors and traditional Aboriginal dot paintings, his style is very disctive, pointed linear forms.

Wenten was chairman of Central Australia Land Council through the 80s, a leader of the Arrente Community.

Artist: Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi

Language: Luritja / Ammatyerre

Title: Grandmother’s Country

Medium: Acrylic on Linen

Size: 32 x 60”

COA included

 Description:
Earthy colors in rust, gold, orage, white, reds and pinksThis painting is gorgeous!! I’ve never seen another one like it.

 Gabriellais represented in a number of commercial galleries and her works form part of many collections, which include: The Art Gallery of South Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Flinders University Art Museum, Museum Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, USA.

This painting offers a symbolic depiction of an Anmatyarre area in the Tanami Desert known as Yuelamu, which is regarded as belonging to the artist`s ancestral grandmother, who came to this area during the Dreamtime and passed on her country and tribal way of life to her female descendants, who are represented as symbolic U-shapes and depicted through human foot prints, or tracks. These tracks also double to represent Yuelamu`s ancestral grandmother and lend to the idea of her walking barefooted over her desert country, which is the subject of this work.

Artist: Lorna Fencer Napurrula
Language: Warlpiri/Ngaliya
Area: Lajamanu

Title: Yarla Dreaming
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 39 x 59 ”

COA and a series of progress pictures included.

Description:
This painting is one of my personal favorites. I think is shows Lornas great love of color and her bold confident use of the brush.

Lorna Fencer Napurrula was a Senior Warlpiri custodian. Lorna was among the many Warlpiri people forcibly relocated to Lajamanu along Hookers Creek, where a government settlement had been established. This country is the traditional land of the Gurindji Aboriginal people. Despite relocation, Lorna Fencer retained her cultural identity through ceremony, story telling and painting her art. In 1986 at the age of about 80 years old she was one of a small group of women who collectively produced the first paintings at Lajamanu.

 Lorna’s work depicts the bush foods of her country originating from Dreaming stories taught to her involving the travels of the Napurrula and Nakamarra skin(or kinship) and some Dreamings from her father’s country of Wapuurtarli.  Her main Dreamings are about the gathering and growth of bush foods such as the Yarla (Yam), Wapirti and Marlujarra. These Dreamings entitle her to paint subjects such as the bush yam (sweet potato), “ngalatji” (little white flower), bush tomato, berry, caterpillar (luju), wallaby, onion, water and particular   mens stories including boomerangs.

The Yarla is an important Dreaming for the Warlpiri women, and a staple food source in the Western Desert. Here Lorna renders it in her distinctive expressive style. Along with visually describing the Yarla, some paintings contain information about when to gather this food source and how to find it.

 The use of vibrant colours and layering creates an exuberance and depth to her work, not often seen in painting of this region, more typically known for its dot work.

 Awards

1997 Gold  Coast City Art Award, Queensland.

Exhibitions 

Solo:

1999 St Valentine’s Exhibition, Brisbane; ‘Tracks Across the Landscape’, Land Rover Showroom, Sydney; ‘Yapa’, Melbourne 1998; ‘Me Warlpiri’, Melbourne 1997.

Group:

2003 Yumarlpa Stories Original & Authentic Aboriginal Art Gallery, Melbourne

2001 A Tribute to Lorna Napurrula Fencer, Original &Authentic Aboriginal Art Gallery, Melbourne.

1999 United Nations Building, New York, USA

1998 6^th Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Exhibition Building, Melbourne

1998 John McCaughey Memorial Art Prize, NGV, Melbourne

1997 Women’s Body Paintings from Lajamanu, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

1997 Recent Acquisitions, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

1996 All About Art, Melbourne

1996 Rainbow Serpent, Vaucluse, NSW

1994 Yapakurlangu Wirrkardu, NT

1991 Aboriginal Art and Spirituality, High Court of Australia

1991Aboriginal Art, Australian Embassy, Washington, USA

1991 Paint up Big Warlpiri Women’s Art from Lajamanu, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

1988 People, Place and Art, Hilton International Hotel, Adelaide, SA.

Collections:

The Holmes à Court Collection, Perth, Western Australia

Christensen Collection (housed at Museum of Victoria)

Museum & Art Galleries of the N.T, Darwin

National Gallery of Victoria

 Perth Museum

Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra

Artbank, Sydney

Laverty Collection, Sydney

Margaret Carnegie Collection

Artist: Edward Blitner Taiita
Area: Ngukkurr, Yugul Mangl Community on the Roper River
Country: Naiyarindji
Clan: Barbil
Moiety: Mambal
Totem: Bandiyan

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 30 x 54″
Certificate of Authenticity 2008

The Rainbow Serpent is a mythological being associated with creation myths from the Top End of Northern Australia. Dreamtime Stories tell of the Rainbow Serpent spirit being the inhabitant of permanent water holes and is in control of life’s most precious resource, water.

about the artist Edward Blitner »

Artist: Annette Pitjara Davis
Area: Barrow Creek / Mt Sterling NT
Language: Katjeta / Arrernte

Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 29 x 35″
Certificate of Authenticity 2007

This is a subtle yet stunning work. All of Annette’s works are noted for their very fine dots and detail which even the smaller works take her many days to complete.

about the artist »

Artist: Gloria Tamerre Petyarre
Area: Utopia
Language: Anmatyerre

Title: Medicine Leaf
Medium: Acrylic on Linen
Size: 24” x 52”

Certificate of Authenticity Included

“Bush Medicine Dreaming” depicts the leaves of a special plant that is used to aid in the healing process. The leaves are collected and then boiled to extract the resin. Following this, the resin is mixed with kangaroo fat collected from the kangaroo’s stomach. This creates a paste that can be stored for up to six months in bush conditions. This medicine is used to heal cuts, wounds, bites, rashes and as an insect repellent. The dreaming that is the basis for Gloria’s paintings comes from the important ceremonies and traditions held by the people of Atnwengerrp. Each painting titled ‘Bush Medicine Dreaming’ shows different aspects from the process and its important links with the land.

about the artist Gloria Tamerre Peyarre »

Artist: Minnie Pwerle
Born: c 1910   Died: March, 2006
Area: Utopia
Language: Anmatyerre, Alyawarr

Title: Awele – Bush Melon and Seed
Medium: Acrylic on Linen
Size: 35 x 47″
Certificate of Authenticity
Date: May 2005

Minnie Pwerle’s main titles are Awelye-Atnwengerrp, Bush Medicine and Bush Melon Seed, all of which convey her love and respect for the land and the food it provides the people.

Bush Melon is represented by meandering linear design, circles and breast motif in different colours, creating very fluid and bold paintings. Bush Melon Seed comprises large and small patches of colour strewn across the canvas. Both these Dreamings tell the story of the sweet bush tucker that comes from a very small bush and is only found in Atnwengerrp. Once very abundant and fruiting in the summer it is now very hard to find.

about the artist Minnie Pwerle »

Artist: Willy Tjungurrayi
Area: Papunya, Kintore NT
Language: Pintupi

Title: Tingari
Medium: Acrylic on Linen
Size: 23” x 49”

This painting describes aspects of the secret and sacred Tingari Cycle, a spiritual journey that incorporates story, song and ceremony. They narrate the stories of theTingari men who traveled over vast stretches of the country, performing rituals that, in turn, brought into being the land formations of particular sites.

about the artist Willy Tjungarrayi »

A coolamon is an indigenous Australian carrying vessel. It is a multi-purpose shallow vessel, or dish with curved sides, ranging in length from 30-70 cm and similar in shape to a canoe. They were carried on the head when travelling any distance, or under the arm if used as a cradle. If carried on the head, a ring pad, made of possum and/or human hair, twisted grass or feathers, was placed on the head. This helped to cushion and support the carriage of the coolamon. The Pintupi of the Western Desert would attach a double strand of plaited rope made of hair or plant fiber, to sling the coolamon over their shoulders. Smaller coolamons were also worn has hats, with the twine around the chin. In addition, they were used for winnowing grains in the traditional bread-making process, as well as a general heating and cooking vessel. They could even be used as an umbrella!

The coolamons pictured here  are approximately 17″ long and 6 ” wide. They are beautiful examples of artifacts painted with acrylic designs sold to tourists in the 1980s and 90s. I also cary carved and insized coolamons in a range of sizes and prices from $35 to $300. Please inquire info@the-painted-door.com