Current Exhibitions

Mirrka (Bushfoods)

More than eighty artworks explore traditional bushfoods in an immersive setting. Swags and a continuous basket weaving circle within the gallery space work to “make people feel like they’re in the bush, collecting bushfoods, when they’re experiencing the paintings. Sitting on a swag and making baskets, having that getting away feeling in the gallery” (Sylvia Wilson, exhibition curator).

Martumili Gallery, Newman, WA

July - November 2023

Shop artwork here

Dancing For Our Country

MY PAINTING SHOWS NYAYARTAKUJARRA (LAKE DORA) AND THE WATERHOLES. IN PUJIMAN (TRADITIONAL, DESERT DWELLING) DAYS WE ALL WALKED FROM WATERHOLE TO WATERHOLE. WE WERE TRAVELLING AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, WE WERE ALL  NAKED! WE GREW UP WALKING ALL AROUND THESE WATERHOLES. ALL OF THESE WATERHOLES ARE STILL HERE, WITH ALL OF THE SONGS AND ALL OF THE DANCES. WE ARE STILL SINGING AND DANCING FOR OUR COUNTRY.’

MAY MAYIWALKU (MAY WOKKA) CHAPMAN

WE ARE DELIGHTED TO WELCOME OUT MARTU FRIENDS BACK TO THE GALLERY FOR A GROUP SHOW OF NEW WORKS TITLED ‘DANCING FOR OUR COUNTRY.’

FEATURED ARTIST :

CORBAN CLAUSE WILLIAMS

DERRICK BUTT

DOREEN CHAPMAN

ELIZABETH  TOBY

JUDITH ANYA SAMSON

KUMPAYA GIRGIRBA

LILY LONG JATARR

LORNA LINMURRA

MARLENE ANDERON

MAY MAYIWALKU CHAPMAN

MUUKI TAYLOR

NANCY CHAPMAN

NGAMARU BIDU

Yaama Ganu Gallery, Moree, NSW

Opens 29 September 

View exhibition here

Represent | Part 1, Aboriginal Figurative Practice in Western Australia

Co-developed by respected Whadjuk Noongar artist and elder Sharyn Egan and presented in collaboration with Bunbury Regional Art Gallery's Noongar Arts Program, Martumili Artists, Mowanjum Arts, FORM's Spinifex Hill Studio, Tjanpi Desert Weavers, Warakurna Artists, Yinjaa Barni Art, significant independent artists and collectors, REPRESENT is the first in a two-part exhibition series surveying figurative practice by Western Australian Aboriginal artists. Part 1 celebrates the senior artists and iconic movements in Western Australian Aboriginal representational art-making, while Part 2 in early 2024 will highlight the new generation of artists reinterpreting it through a contemporary lens.

REPRESENT features masterful paintings and sculptures exploring culture, heritage, connection to land, spirituality, history and the everyday.

FORM Gallery, Claremont, WA

27 Oct - 16 Dec

View Catalogue here

Martumili XMAS Sale

Martumili Artists' famous Christmas Sale will begin on the 24th of November and run through to the 17th of December.

We are doing things a little different this time around - festivities kick off with our annual Christmas party on Friday night 24/11 in Newman (where all works will be available for sale from our gallery), followed by all works going live the next morning at 10am (25/11) on our online store.

All artworks will be discounted by 40%, so if you've had your eyes on an artwork this year, make sure you're ready to jump online or swing by the Newman gallery.  We can't wait to see you!

Martumili Artists Gallery, Newman, WA

24th November - 17th December

SONGLINES – PEINTURES ABORIGÈNES DU DÉSERT AUSTRALIEN

A sequel to Le Chant Aborigène des Sept Sœurs (The Seven Sisters Story), this exhibition continues to explore the incredible wealth of interpretations and visual expressions around the important Aboriginal creation myth of the Seven Sisters that runs across the Australian continent.

Songlines – Peintures Aborigènes du Désert Australien (Aboriginal Paintings from the Australian Desert) follows a series of Songlines exhibitions held in Paris in 2023, based on the Seven Sisters Story celebrated in the international touring exhibition conceived by the National Museum of Australia, Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters.

Considering the success of the first exhibition presented in April – July 2023 Le Chant Aborigène des Sept Sœurs (The Seven Sisters Story), and the importance of this creation myth, this second exhibition continues to explore the incredible wealth of interpretations and visual expressions of this story that follows the trail of Seven Ancestral Sisters, whose adventures, sung, danced and drawn over thousands of years, contribute to explain the formation of the world and of Aboriginal tribal laws, from the central desert to the Pilbara region on the west coast of Australia, crossing three Australian states.

Through a new selection of works from Aboriginal artist cooperatives located along the Seven Sisters Trail, the exhibition bears witness to the dynamism of these artistic communities and reveals new treasures.

Staged in the magnificent, atypical exhibition space at the heart of the Passage du Grand Cerf, the works are available for sale to generate income for the artists and cooperatives, and to help support the ethical and sustainable Australian Aboriginal art sector.

Organised by social enterprise IDAIA in collaboration with Aboriginal artist cooperatives, in partnership with New Angles – Five Seeds and with the support of the Embassy of Australia to France.

Passage du Grand Cerf, Paris, France
12 October – 23 December 2023

For more information click here

NGAYUKU KAPARLI-KURNU NGURRA – KULYAKARTU (MY GRANDMOTHER’S COUNTRY – KALYAKARTU)

Both artists were born on the WA coast - Derrick in Derby, Wilson in Broome - but both have discovered a deep connection to Kulyakartu in the Great Central Desert, the ancestral home of their grandmothers.

When he was a teenager, Derrick asked his grandmother ”Where is your Country? I want to know your Country”. She told him “Go to the desert, go to Parngurr (Kulyakartu) and you’ll see my brothers and sisters”. Derrick discovered not only his legendary artist relatives, Muuki, Nola and Mr Taylor, but also an immediate and profound connection to Country. “Painting my country strengthens that connection – knowing that I belong to that place. It’s a tribute to my grandmother”.

Wilson Mandijalu had never painted before visiting his grandmother’s Country after his people were granted native title. “It felt like home when I got there. I didn’t want to leave that place. All the grandparents, old people were painting. I would sit down and watch them paint. I was thinking that I could do painting like them”.

Both artists depict the same revered and complex Country; its salt lakes, waterholes, shimmering undulations and dry, cracked claypans. Each paints it with his own unique style and palette, their works coming together in an elegantly curated show that is an authentic insight into First Nations peoples’ relationship with their land.

Aboriginal Contemporary, Waverley, NSW

Exhibition opens Saturday 18 November 

View and Shop Exhibition here

Bugai Whyoulter, Tarnanthi

Tarnanthi at AGSA showcases the latest works of contemporary art from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists across the continent.

Included in this years exhibition is work from the desert homelands that have inspired Bugai Whyoulter’s sublime depictions of seasonal changes around Wantili,

Tarnanthi, Art Gallery of South Australia

20 Oct 2023 – 21 Jan 2024

For more on Tarnanthi click here