Embassy of Australia
United States of America
Embassy address: 1601 Massachusetts Ave, NW Washington DC 20036 - Telephone: (202) 797 3000 - Fax: (202) 797 3168

Gallery @ the Embassy 

Yuru-yururla: Women’s Painting from Yuendumu

Judy Napangardi Watson 'Mina Mina Jukurrpa' (Women's Dreaming)

Judy Napangardi Watson 'Mina Mina Jukurrpa' (Women's Dreaming) 2004 (c) 2009 Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/VISCOPY, Australia.

Yuendumu is a Warlpiri settlement one hundred and eighty miles northwest of Alice Springs in the Tanami Desert. At Yuendumu, Warlpiri women reproduce stories from their ritual and daily life on vibrant canvases with acrylic paints.

The canvases display a core of traditional graphic symbols including circles, semi-circles and lines, meanders and dots, animal and human footprints translated from traditional sand drawings and ritual designs painted on the body or wooden objects.

Women’s painting from Yuendumu holds particular significance because until the women from this community started painting, only male artists had been thought to have significant knowledge of the local cosmology know as the ‘Dreaming’ to paint their stories. In 1984 when the women of the community wished to buy a new four wheel drive Toyota, they began to paint on canvas. While initially this work was sold to non-Aboriginal friends, it quickly attracted the attention of art professionals and has subsequently attracted widespread acclaim.

Featuring 38 recent paintings by 36 artists, this exhibition comes from Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association - Yuendumu’s artists cooperative. It was most recently displayed at The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, University of Virginia.

The exhibition will be on display from 8 June until 28 August.

 
 

Gallery open 10am - 2pm weekdays
Photo ID essential for entry
For further information
please call (202) 797 3000
or email Cultural.relationsUS@dfat.gov.au