Francesca Puruntatameri: Pwoja Jilamara

Niagara Galleries presents Pwoja Jilamara, Francesca Puruntatameri’s highly anticipated solo exhibition following her debut at Niagara in 2025. Her latest exhibition features variously scaled and shaped bark paintings, as well as major paintings on canvas and works on paper. Her work across all media is vital and celebratory, balancing a meticulous application of paint with an instinct for the rhythmic potential of abstraction, variously highlighting the materiality of bark, paper and canvas. Responding to each chosen surface, Francesca Puruntatameri employs a sophisticated interplay of colour and linework, including multilayered crossed diagonals, complemented by patterning made with pwoja, the traditional carved Tiwi comb.

Francesca Puruntatameri’s individual expression of Tiwi abstraction is drawn from a shared understanding of Jilamara, the significant artistic designs painted during ceremonies on the Tiwi Islands. During these ceremonies, turtiyanginari (a range of natural ochre pigments) are applied to the bodies and faces of dancers who act out totemic (inherited from an individual’s father) and newly composed narratives and songs. These designs and mark-making serve to transform the dancers and in some cases, provide protection from recognition by mapurtiti (spirits). Francesca Puruntatameri references this rich history in her own, clear and distinct manner.