Pedro Wonaeamirri. Pwoja-Pukumani – Body Paint Design, 2023 (AK23505), Locally sourced ochres on ironwood, 120 x 50 cm © The Artist, Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne 2024

Pedro Wonaeamirri’s sophisticated artistic practice has long affirmed his standing alongside the most significant and influential Tiwi artists of generations past and present.

As one of the few Tiwi people of his generation who speaks old or classic Tiwi, Wonaeamirri’s contemporary art practice is steeped in Tiwi tradition. His commanding paintings on bark and linen reveal a profound knowledge of heritage, meticulously depicting the Jilamara (design) with artistic confidence and an exceptional sense of composition. A master of traditional techniques his paintings are rendered with kayimwagakimi (the traditional Tiwi iron-wood comb), a process he has refined over decades to produce the strong fields of colour and geometric patterns that have become his signature.

Having joined the Alcaston Gallery stable in 1991, the same year he commenced his artistic career, Ngiya Purrungbarri – My Bark marks Wonaeamirri’s ninth solo exhibition at Alcaston Gallery – a milestone in a friendship between artist and gallery spanning three decades.