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

Represent (Part 2) Aboriginal Figurative Practice in Western Australia

Co-developed with respected Whadjuk Noongar artist and elder Sharyn Egan, the REPRESENT series provides a survey of figurative practice by Western Australian Aboriginal artists. Part 1 celebrated the senior artists and landmark movements within Western Australian Aboriginal representational art-making, and included works by iconic senior artists from the past four decades. This second iteration of the project highlights the contemporary generation of emerging art stars interpreting figurative practice today.

ARTISTS

Rodney Adams (Yinjaa-Barni Art) | Sophia Alone (Spinifex Hill Studio) | Owen John Biljabu (Martumili Artists) | Yanyangkari Roma Butler (Tjanpi Desert Weavers) | Doreen Chapman (Spinifex Hill Studio) | Tanya Charles (Martumili Artists) | Layne Dhu-Dickie (Spinifex Hill Studio) | Arthur Eades (Bunbury Regional Art Gallery Noongar Arts Program) | Sharyn Egan | Wendy Hubert (Juluwarlu Art Group) | Brett Nannup | Nyangulya Katie Nalgood (Spinifex Hill Studio) | Jean Norman (Juluwarlu Art Group) | Rocky Porter (Warakurna Arts) | Ross Potter | Allery Sandy (Yinjaa-Barni Art) | John Prince Siddon (Mangkaja Arts) | Tyrown Waigana | Wendy Warrie (Cheeditha Art Group) | Mandy White | Cyril Whyoulter (Martumili Artists) | Carol Williams (Martumili Artists)

View catalogue here

FORM Gallery, Claremont, WA

8th March - May 4th