Journey into the heart of First Nations Art

As a curator of First Nations art, I have had the enormous privilege of meeting many artists and visiting their homes and studios over the decades – from the famous loungeroom in Brunswick, Naarm, of the late and dearly loved Destiny Deacon, to the windbreak in the tiny community of Patjarr in the remote Western Desert that Jackie Kurltjunyintja Giles Tjapaltjarri called home. It was this sense of privilege that led me to write and present the ABC television series art + soul. *

Moving home to Mparntwe to work with the Desart team on the annual festival Desert Mob has presented an opportunity to again get on the road and head out to visit some old and new faces and places. Desart is the peak advocacy body for forty Central Australian Aboriginal art centres and its membership reach extends from the Northern Territory into South Australia and Western Australia. In 2022, Desart presented Desert Mob for the first time and this has prompted a more collaborative approach to the festival, now in its 33^rd year. In the lead up to Desert Mob 2024, the team travelled to the Ngaanyatjarra Lands and the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY).

Kaltukatjara is a few hours’ drive west of Yulara on the Tjukaruru road with the sparsely beautiful rolling red sandhills dotted with spinifex and desert oaks of Kata Tjuta and Uluru giving way to the spectacular Petermann Ranges. It’s like driving through a painting by Lance James (Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists) whose renderings of his country perfectly capture the dramatic sweep of the range and its peaks and bluffs, with the changing light transforming them from pink to red to purple. Along a track just off the main road there are spectacular stands of Xanthorrhoea in the dips between sandhills.

Kaltukatjara community is at the foothill of a gap in the range where the river course has carved a path and, like most art centres, you can pretty much locate it by the buzz of activity from artists young and old, kids and dogs, coming and going. Tjarlirli and Kaltukatjara Arts – which was founded at the nearby community of Tjukurla – is packed the morning we arrive after negotiating the assortment of dogs patiently waiting outside for their people. Once inside, we are greeted by a chorus of “good morning” by several artists at work and spot Bob Gibson in the paint mixing room at the back working his magic. There are two prams parked by a table, one with a sleeping baby and the other, surprisingly, with a joey who is being fed by an artist with a bottle in one hand and a paintbrush in the other.

Out in the sunny courtyard, the Tjanpi Desert Weavers have set up camp, and there’s a quiet intensity with groups of artists in the final stages of completing their works for Desert Mob 2024. As each is completed the artists pose for photos with the work, it’s documented, then wrapped and packed in the Tjanpi troopie ready for the long drive back to Mparntwe.

CONTINUED in Part 2

Hetti Perkin’s complete article will feature in the upcoming issue of Art Collector (NATSIAA Special) Oct-Dec.