Paintings by Warakurna artists. Photo: Warakurna Artists
Warakurna Artists, Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Western Australia
In 2000, Warakurna women performed at the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games. Five years later, in March 2005, the community opened its own art centre. Warakurna Artists is 100% Indigenous owned and governed, located among the Rawlinson Ranges in the Gibson Desert approximately 330 kilometres west of Uluru near the Northern Territory border. The people of Warakurna speak Ngaanyatjarra as their first language and refer to themselves as Yarnangu. Western Desert people were among the last Aboriginal people in Australia to have sustained contact with Europeans; in the Warakurna area that contact was sporadic until the 1950s, when the Giles Meteorological Weather Station was constructed nearby. Warakurna was established in the 1970s as an outstation for families wanting to return closer to their traditional country, partly in response to overcrowding at Docker River. Art practice on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands spread from Warburton in the 1990s through a series of painting workshops, and six art centres eventually emerged across the region.
The art centre provides services to artists in Warakurna and the nearby communities of Wanarn and Patjarr. Painting is the primary activity, with artists working across canvas, linen, and paper to express Tjukurrpa (traditional law and culture) and contemporary stories. Warakurna is known for a distinctive expressive and loosely figurative style that sets it apart from neighbouring Western Desert centres. The Tjilpi and Pampa (old men and old women) program at Wanarn, 110 kilometres to the west, has fostered a body of work characterised by minimalist technique and rich cultural content. Artists have also developed a genre of history paintings depicting first contact stories and aspects of community life. Works are held in the National Gallery of Victoria, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Harriet and Richard England Collection. Artists have been finalists in the Telstra NATSIAA in 2005, 2009, and 2013, and Eunice Porter won the Western Australian Artist Award in 2015.
Warakurna Artists at a glance
- Location: Warakurna community, Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Gibson Desert WA, approximately 330km west of Uluru
- Language group: Ngaanyatjarra (Yarnangu people)
- Established: March 2005
- Communities served: Warakurna, Wanarn, Patjarr
- Art forms: Acrylic painting on canvas and linen, works on paper, tjanpi (grass) and purnu (wood) sculpture, photography
- Collections: National Gallery of Victoria, Seattle Art Museum, Harriet and Richard England Collection
- Getting there: Via the Great Central Road; community permit required
