Current Exhibitions

JILA KUJARRA: TWO SNAKES DREAMING

Jila Kujarra: Two Snakes Dreaming is an exciting cross-cultural collaboration between Warnman artist Desmond Taylor and Boorloo-based textiles practitioner Mariaan Pugh, commissioned by Fremantle Arts Centre in partnership with Martumili Artists. 

Taylor and Pugh have worked together to transform Taylor’s Niminjarra paintings, usually seen on canvas or paper, into highly tactile textile works, animating the important Niminjarra Jukurrpa (Dreaming).

“Niminjarra is the two brothers transforming into a snake so they can come back home to Ngayartakujarra (Lake Dora). They were in training for ceremony, those two brothers, but they were kept too long, and nobody was there to release them. They waited then they decided to transform into snakes to travel back to where they came from, because their mother was waiting for them. This is Jukurrpa (Dreaming story).”

— Desmond Taylor, 2019

This body of work is born of Taylor’s desire to see his artworks reimagined through a textile medium and is a contemporary crafting of important ancestral stories deeply rooted in Warnman Ngurra (Country).

The dynamic intercultural collaboration between Desmond Taylor and textiles practitioner and educator Mariaan Pugh continues the practice of cultural and creative exchange, driven by Taylor and other Martu artists through Martumili Artists, sharing narratives and understandings of the world from the Great Sandy, Little Sandy and Gibson deserts with national and international audiences.

To see more click here

Jilla Kujarra is now touring with Art on the Move:

February 16 - April 12, 2024

Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery & Visitor Centre

April 19 - April 28, 2024

Victoria Park Centre for the Arts July

18 - August 24, 2024

Warwick Art Gallery (QLD)

January 17 - February 23, 2025

Goldfields Arts Centre

Following in Footsteps

Many of the works by Martumili artists are representations of Country as defined by familial ties- artists paint “where their family is from and where they belong to” (Kuru Gladys Bidu). One’s Country encompasses their birthplace, and the Country they and their family lived on during the pujiman (traditional, desert dweller) era.  Following in footsteps charts this relationship between family walytja and Country.

On now at the Martumili Gallery, Newman

8th March - 23rd June

Autumn Salon

An exhibition of new paintings and sculptures in soft and evocative autumn hues by leading and emerging First Nations'  artists rrom the Kimberley, Central Deserts, the Pilbara, the APY Lands, the Tiwi Islands and Arnhem Land.

Featuring newly-arrived works by Bugai Whyoulter, Nancy Chapman, Nora Nungabar and others from Martumili Artists of the Pilbara; Athena Nangala Granites, Pauline Napangardi Gallagher, Steven Jupurrula Nelson and more from the Western Desert's Warlukurlangu Artists.

Patrick Mung Mung and Betty Bundumarra from the Kimberley's Warmun Art Centre and Waringarri Arts; Charmaine Pwerle, Belinda Golder Kngwarreye , Janet Golder Kngwarrye, and other painters of Utopia; Tjunkaya Tapaya, Janice Stanley, and Yurpiya Lionel from Ernabella Arts and a wide range of works from the Tiwi Islands, Arnhem Land, Central Australia, the APY Lands  and Far North Queensland.

To find out more click here

30th March - 26th May

Everywhen Art Space, Shoreham, Vic

Revealed 2024!

This year the annual Revealed Exhibition returns to Fremantle Arts Centre in collaboration with the Aboriginal Art Centre Hub of Western Australia (AACHWA.)

The exhibition celebrates the diversity, talent and passion of contemporary Aboriginal Art practice in Western Australia.

Known for championing new and emerging First Nations artists, in 2024 there are 42 artists featured in Revealed for the first time – the highest number of emerging artists that have featured in the exhibition since its inception.

Martumili is thrilled that Sharon Porter, Kennedy Finlay and Lynette Rowlands will be amongst those exhibiting.

Fremantle Art Centre, Fremantle

Opening Thursday 9th May

10th of May - 4th of August

To find out more click here