Shirley Purdie, 13km to Violet Valley Campground (120/23), 2023. Natural ochre and pigment on canvas, 45 x 45cm. Courtesy: the artist, Warmun Art Centre, Warmun and Olsen Gallery, Sydney.

Together with Warmun Art Centre, OLSEN Gallery presents Country to Canvas, an exhibition of new and significant paintings by four generations of esteemed Gija women artists.

Guided by the great Shirley Purdie, daughter Madeline Purdie and granddaughter Tatum Rivers-Purdie have produced a suite of works that respond to the sites and stories of their Ancestral Lands. Knowledge pertaining to these subjects has been passed down over time, along with a distinct visual language, and masterful use of natural earth pigment. These paintings will hang alongside those drawn from the Estate of Madigan Thomas, Shirley’s mother, who fostered the unique East Kimberley art movement throughout the 1980s and 1990s alongside peers such as Rover Thomas, Jack Britten and Queenie McKenzie. Together, they sought to define contemporary artmaking in the region, leaving a generous and deeply important legacy to their community.

The exhibition follows a recent collecting trip that saw the Purdie artists travel out onto Country to source the key ingredients for their paintings – the richly coloured ochres that offer varying hues and swathes of texture to their canvases. “When we go out on Country, we feel connected to the Country and to the paint. Connecting us to the Country and to the ochre keeps us strong,” explains Madeline.

Major works by Madigan Thomas are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Shirley Purdie has received vast commissions by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Eora/Sydney and the National Portrait Gallery, Kamberri/Canberra, and is a highly respected custodian of law and culture. Madeline Purdie and Tatum Rivers-Purdie continue to be influenced by their Elders and are establishing greatly productive careers of their own.