MINYMA NINTI PULKA
JGM GALLERY ACKNOWLEDGES THE TRADITIONAL OWNERS AND CUSTODIANS OF COUNTRY THROUGHOUT AUSTRALIA AND RECOGNISES THEIR CONTINUING CONNECTION TO THE LAND, WATERS AND SKIES, OFTEN EXPRESSED THROUGH ART.
WE PAY OUR RESPECTS TO ALL FIRST NATIONS ARTISTS, ELDERS AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
MINYMA NINTI PULKA: WISE WOMEN
JGM GALLERY LONDON
AN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS BY TEN INDIGENOUS CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
J GM GALLERY presents Minyma Ninti Pulka: Wise Women an exhibition of paintings by ten Indigenous women artists working from Tjala Arts, Amata, on Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, South Australia.
A common focus for the exhibiting artists is exploring how best to transmit important cultural knowledge to future generations of Pitjantjatjara, an Indigenous language group whose lands lie in the northwest of South Australia. In this sense, the artists’ work is pedagogic, teaching about ancestral times, survival, animals and landscapes. Many of the artists exhibited in Minyma Ninti Pulka: Wise Women are older, learned women in the Amata community. Their works reflect the abundance of cultural knowledge which the artists continue to preserve and develop. In this context of cultural maintenance, paintings are a mnemonic device which assist in committing landscapes, their features and embedded stories to memory through an array of visual signifiers.
Two predominant stories recur through the exhibited paintings: the Kungkarangkalpa tjukurpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming) and kapi tjukula (rock holes). The Seven Sisters tjukurpa not only connects many Indigenous language, social and nation groups across Australia, but also finds parallels in the epistemologies of global cultures. ‘The Seven Sisters’ commonly describe the Pleiades constellation, which is followed across the night sky by its neighbouring constellation, Orion. Kapi tjukula (rock holes), on the other hand, are important sites for the collection of rainwater, a resource which is indispensable in Amata’s desert climate.
For Anangu specifically, the stories of the Kungkarangkalpa and kapi tjukula are related. In a Pitjantjatjara account of the Seven Sisters tjukurpa the Sisters are told to be running from the wati nyiru (bad man) who, through acts of trickery and deception, attempts to catch the Sisters for his pleasure. The wati has power to shapeshift into different landscapes, disguising himself as he pursues the Sisters. A landscape into which the wati transforms himself is one featuring rock formations, such as kapi tjukula Wise to the tricks of the wati the eldest of the Seven Sisters protects her younger siblings from him and teaches them to notice and evade his tricks. The Sisters eventually escape the wati because of the eldest sister’s guidance. While this story’s theme of the landscape’s creation is broadly relevant for Anangu law, its others of pursuit and survival, and
malign men and spirits are perhaps even more so for Anangu women. The Seven Sisters tjukurpa also strikes up an interesting discourse between places that are important for survival ( kapi tjukula ) and the sometimes sinister poetry of their creation stories, a conflict between things of value and their weighty connotations.
Art is not only a pedagogic tool for Anangu, but a site of collaboration between different generations of women in their family groups. The exhibiting artists represent the three important artistic families in Amata − the Burtons, the Mitakikis and the Kens − who often work collaboratively. The role of women artists who are teachers to the next generation of painters can be likened to that of the eldest of the Seven Sisters, whose responsibility it was to pass on her knowledge to her younger sisters to ensure their survival. Kumanara (Mona) Mitakiki Shepherd was, before her death in 2023, the oldest painter in Amata, and painted with Tjimpayi Presley and Naomi Kantjuriny under the Mitakiki Women ’ s Collaborative. All three women shared the same teacher, Kumanara (Tjampawa Katie) Kawiny, and learnt their particular style of painting from her This genealogy of style is shown in Minyma Ninti Pulka: Wise Women through a comparison between Shepherd’s Seven Sisters and Presley and Kantjuriny’s Kapi Tjukula Tjuta (Many Rock Holes) Both paintings are composed of two central vertical passages, surrounded by small, tightly spaced circles representing kapi tjukula . While their titles suggest that these works’ subjects are different, their compositional and representational similarities reinforce the connections of landscape, story, family and style shared between all three artists. Although not originally from Amata, Barbara Mbitjana Moore summarises painting’s importance for intergenerational learning saying, “Through my painting I’m teaching my daughters and grandchildren too. I’m doing this for my family − it’s all about my family.”
Minyma Ninti Pulka: Wise Women is therefore comprised of works that express the importance of women’s roles in Amata, women’s knowledge, and how strong community leadership fosters the preservation of this knowledge. As JGM Gallery Director, Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi says, “Historically, women’s knowledge − particularly Indigenous women’s knowledge − has been sidelined. It is JGM Gallery’s hope to reinstate this knowledge as integral for understanding Indigenous ways of life, and to contribute to amplifying women’s voices from around the globe.”
Barbara Mbitjana Moore on Country, 2024. Image courtesy of Tyson Millar.
Tjimpayi Presley, Kapi Tjukula Tjuta (Many Rock Holes) (detail), 2024, acrylic on linen, 197cm x 118.5cm. Image courtesy of Paul Williamson.
JENNIFER GUERRINI MARALDI
I HAVE OFTEN thought that the importance of art is somewhat overlooked. Certainly, almost anyone you ask will say that they like art, but is it seen as something vital? To go a step further, I would say that, historically, art that expresses women’s knowledge − particularly Indigenous women’s knowledge − has been marginalised or ignored almost entirely.
This exhibition triumphantly affirms the importance of the knowledge passed down by the wise women of Amata in South Australia. The paintings detail stories, important sites, and an environmental understanding which has sustained their people for thousands of years in one of the world’s harshest landscapes. That said, the exhibiting artists express this knowledge in a far more powerful way than an empirical cartographer or illustrator ever could. Much like the shapeshifting wati nyiru (bad man), who during his pursuit of the Seven Sisters transforms into features of the land, the paint on these canvases seems to constantly shift and change, enveloping the viewer in a magnificent marriage of form and content.
It is JGM Gallery’s hope to reinstate this knowledge as integral for understanding Indigenous ways of life, and to contribute to amplifying women’s voices from around the globe. Minyma Ninti Pulka: Wise Women ultimately speaks to an environmental adaptability and a capacity to adjust to changing circumstances, something we would do well to learn from in these tumultuous times.
Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi, 2024.
Image courtesy of Julius Killerby.
FOREWORD BY
Portrait of Naomi Kantjuriny and Mona Mitakiki Shepherd, 2024. Image courtesy of Tyson Millar.
IN CONVERSATION WITH BARBARA MBITJANA MOORE
BARBARA MBITJANA MOORE IS AN ANMATYERRE CONTEMPORARY ARTIST WHO GREW UP IN AMOONGUNA, NORTHERN TERRITORY. SHE ATTENDED YIRARA COLLEGE, A BOARDING SCHOOL IN MPARNTWE (ALICE SPRINGS), BEFORE SHE MOVED FURTHER NORTH TO HER FATHER S COUNTRY AT TI TREE AND WORKED AS A PRE-SCHOOL TEACHER. LATER ON, MOORE MOVED TO AMATA, SOUTH AUSTRALIA WHERE SHE PAINTS AT TJALA ARTS AND WORKS IN CHILDCARE. MOORE WAS PRESENTED WITH THE 'GENERAL PAINTING AWARD ' AT THE TELSTRA NATSIAA AWARDS IN 2012. IN 2019 SHE WAS A RESIDENT AT THE KLUGE-RUHE COLLECTION OF ABORIGINAL ART, VIRGINIA , AT WHICH SHE HELD HER FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION.
IN THE WEEKS PRECEDING MINYMA NINTI PULKA: WISE WOMEN , JGM GALLERY WRITER & RESEARCHER, ANTONIA CRICHTON-BROWN, MET WITH MOORE OVER ZOOM TO DISCUSS HER PRACTICE.
FOLLOWS IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THEIR CONVERSATION.
Barbara Mbitjana Moore in the studio, 2024. Image courtesy of Tyson Millar.
ANTONIA CRICHTON-
BROWN So, Barbara, you are not originally from Amata. Can you tell me about where you are from?
BARBARA MBITJANA
MOORE I’ve been living here for must be 20 years. [I’ve] Been working at the health centre – in the clinic in Amata – and painting in the old art centre near the shop. My family [are] all from Northern Territory, not from South Australia… but my kids are from South Australia… my daughter, my son and my grandkids. That’s why I’m here with them, staying here and working here and painting as well. My grandkids don’t paint with me – they’re all too little – they go to school. They’re not ready. Tiffany’s the youngest. She’s only 5 years old.
ACB What does painting do for you?
" I WOULD LIKE THEM (THE YOUNG ONES) TO FOLLOW IN MY FOOTSTEPS. THEY CAN TAKE IT ON WHEN I AM GONE. "
- BARBARA MBITJANA MOORE
BMM It makes me sit around… quiet way… and I like to be myself in a room working quiet way with the other ladies.
ACB What are your paintings about?
BMM I’m painting my mother’s side Country. It’s around Yarrampa area, Ti Tree, Yarrampa. I’ve got two ways – father’s Country and my mother’s Country. My father come from Ti Tree and my mother come from Yarrampa.
ACB Why do you paint your mother’s Country rather than your father’s?
BMM It’s got the hills nearby, near the community.
ACB Am I right in thinking that Amata is also quite a hilly landscape? Do you draw inspiration from Amata’s landscape?
BMM Yes, a lot.
ACB What do you remember about your mother’s Country?
BMM I paint and remember getting it on my head, on my memory. I still love my mother’s Country and sometimes it gets in my head when I am starting to draw and getting some colours ready. She (her mother) brought me up. She was there for me all the time and now she’s not here. She’s not in the world, so that’s why I keep on thinking of her. While I’m painting, I think of her. It’s just me and my young brother and my big sister… and my kids. I lost my mum, all my family.
ACB When I hear you saying that you paint your mother’s Country and remember her while you’re painting, it makes me think about different generations of women passing knowledge on between them. What have you taught your kids?
BM It’s not really getting there yet for them to start painting with me. The kids are still growing up. Sometimes they are coming in [the art centre] and play around and sit around and watch. And sometimes they like walking around, and coming in the office, and going in the spaces where the paint is.
ACB So is the art centre like a community centre? What’s it like painting with the other artists there?
BMM We sit around –sometimes on the floor, sometimes on the table – and we chat along when we paint and laugh, and giggle telling stories. All that sort of stuff.
ACB Tell me about what painting has done for you so far.
BMM The first painting that took me through… the one that won the Telstra Award in Darwin in 2012… that’s what made me famous. I went to America… to Virginia (in 2019)… I done a big painting on the wall there (at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, Charlottesville). I went with Annie McLoughlin and Sharon Adamson. It was my trip. I was going to go myself. It was good – away from Australia to another world. It was fun. There were American Indians in Virginia that I [hadn’t] seen before. We met them and were talking to them and were asking about painting. It was really nice talking among us, another culture living there. I was asking them about how they work and how they live and how they do artist stuff like making paintings, or wooden stuff like that.
ACB What sort of connection did you feel to them?
BMM It was nice – sharing my story to them and them sharing their story to us. I wasn’t shy. I was talking to them and making them be proud and happy. I was doing that to myself as an Aboriginal Australian, and them as aboriginal American. And there was also a big group of kids in a big building. And there was me and Annie in front of the class, and we was talking about the story. I was talking about my story back home here, and how I started and how I’ve been through it. And they was asking questions, and I was answering the questions for them. They were really interested hearing the story that I was talking about – my own painting – and telling them that I made a big painting in the place we were staying.
ACB How would you describe your experience in America?
BMM It was the first time for me exploring, going to another state from outside of the world, going into another world away from Australia and see[ing] another country and how the people live there and how they work.
ACB Can you tell me about the mural painting you did there?
BMM It was the first time doing that on the wall. I didn’t know that I was going to do that. I thought I was going for my exhibition.
ACB So it was a bit of a shock?
BMM Yes *laughs*.
ACB How did the American landscape inspire you?
BMM The colours of the land did.
ACB Tell me more about the colours in your work and what they represent.
BMM They represent the skies, grass, land… desert land with waters around… all those kinds of flowers. Nature.
ACB What do the circles and lines between them represent to you?
BMM When you are going up to the hills and going to see the water – rock holes – you see a little stream coming down, going down and matching up with other water on the side. Big space of rock coming down with the water. It gets formed up. When you see another rock hole not far from the top of the hill, not right on top but between – in the middle – and you see the water holes and the stream matches up with the other rock hole down the bottom.
ACB How do you start a painting? Do you plan it beforehand?
BMM It comes along when I’m going through it. It just get into my head and making me able to know where I’m going to start and to start doing the pattern.
ACB Your paintings are very different to a lot of the other work that is in this exhibition. Tell me about your personal style.
BMM My style is different from these people (Anangu). I normally do a brushy style with my brush, like quick way. Thick brush. All those rock holes and the streams going down to the rock holes. And the colours. They look like landscape, like trees, flowers, hills, sky, land. That’s the colour that I’m putting through with my imagination, focusing wherever I go. I see and I start getting it in my head. I come to the art centre and start painting. Even when I’m travelling on a plane, I look down and see the colours of the landscape and start doing painting and all that. When I’m painting, I’m thinking about my Country where I’m from. I’ve been doing dot painting before. Then I decided to do another style using the brush as a quick way [of] doing the rock holes and getting the colours.
ACB How long ago was it that you were painting using dots?
BMM Ten years ago… When Tracey Lea was working. Sarah was working at the old art centre and then we moved from there to this art centre with Skye, Natalie. The new ones came in, then Jonny and Trea (Tjala Arts’ current studio coordinator and manager) came in.
ACB We’re showing a beautiful red painting that looks like the colours of the desert and one with blues and yellows.
BMM Yes, that [second] one is like the water coming down from the rock hole, coming down from the waterfall. The yellow is the sun shining.
ACB Naomi’s work seems based firmly in stories. What stories do you tell in your work?
BMM It’s about the rock hole. Kapi tjukula. That kapi tjukula is about the water… lots of rock hole.
ACB Is it the same story as the story the Mitakiki Women’s Collaborative paint?
BMM No, it’s a different story. Naomi does it with the sticks… dot painting… and I do it with the brush, the big brushes.
ACB What are you thinking of painting next?
BMM I’m not doing much painting at the moment because I’m working at the pre-school with the little ones. It’s not time for me to do more painting. I teach the little ones, the early childhood kids, the pre-schoolers. Childcare. On Monday to Thursday and then Friday no school for the pre-schoolers and only childcare for the little ones.
ACB One of this exhibition’s themes is the intergenerational transmission of knowledge. Why do you think it is important to pass on knowledge to your kids?
BMM I would like them to follow my footsteps. They can take it on when I am gone.
ACB What do you teach the young people?
BMM Showing them how to paint so they can learn from me. I’m teaching them. They will sit down and watch me do this and that. Sit around and doing things together with them.
ACB Do you take them out on Country?
BMM Not really. Probably next year.
ACB What about the next generation of painters in Amata. What do you think of their work?
BMM The young ones are also coming to the art centre and learning and looking and doing their family painting. They got older ladies, middle age ladies, young ladies and quite young ladies together, collaborating when they work. We’ve got lots of them. But for myself, there’s no one beside me to do my collaborating work with my side of the family. There’s not. It’s difficult... It’s hard for me to do it on my own. [My grandkids] got to grow up and be young teenagers and then they’ll start doing this with me.
ACB Where would you like painting to take you next?
BMM Travelling the world and telling stories about painting. [I want people to have] big smiles [when they look at my work] and know about me and where I come from.
ARTWORK IMAGES
Previous page: Barbara Mbitjana Moore, Ngayuku Ngura My Country, Nturiya, 2023, acrylic on linen, 195.5cm x 120cm. Image courtesy of Paul Williamson.
Mitakiki Women’ s Collaborative (Naomi Kantjuriny & Tjimpayi Presley), Kapi Tjukula Tjuta (Many Rock Holes), 2022, acrylic on linen, 195.5cm x 197cm
Mona Mitakiki Shepherd, Seven Sisters, 2020, acrylic on linen, 150cm x 121cm
Tjimpayi Presley, Kapi Tjukula Tjuta (Many Rock Holes), 2024, acrylic on linen, 197cm x 118.5cm
Naomi Kantjuriny, Minyma Mamu Tjuta, 2025, acrylic on linen, 120cm x 120cm
Barbara Mbitjana Moore, Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) 2023, acrylic on linen, 194cm x 195.2cm
Barbara Mbitjana Moore, Ngayuku Ngura - My Country, Nturiya, 2023, acrylic on linen, 195.5cm x 120cm
Joylene Presley, Kapi Tjukula (Rock Hole), 2024, acrylic on linen, 196cm x 121cm
Veronica Lewis, Ngayuku Ngura (My Country), 2024, acrylic on linen, 121cm x 151cm
Angela Burton, Untitled 2023, acrylic on linen, 195cm x 195cm
Angela Burton, Mingkiri (Mice), 2024, acrylic on Belgian linen, 198cm x 150cm
Portrait of Angela Burton on Country, 2024. Image courtesy of Tyson Millar.
Freda Brady, Seven Sisters, 2025, acrylic on linen, 151.5cm x 100.5cm
Janie Kulyuru Lewis, Ngayuku Ngura (My Country), 2024, acrylic on linen, 150.7cm x 120cm
Deborah Burton, Kapi Tjukula Tjuta (Many Rock Holes), 2024, acrylic on linen, 120cm x 100.5cm
Deborah Burton, Kapi Tjukula (Rock Hole), 2025, acrylic on linen, 121cm x 121cm
FREDA BRADY ANGELA BURTON
LEWIS
VERONICA LEWIS
BARBARA MBITJANA MOORE
MONA MITAKIKI SHEPHERD TJIMPAYI PRESLEY JOYLENE PRESLEY
Front cover: Mitakiki Women
s Collaborative (Naomi Kantjuriny & Tjimpayi Presley), Kapi Tjukula Tjuta (Many Rock Holes) (detail), 2022, acrylic on linen, 195.5cm x 197cm. Image courtesy of Paul Williamson.
Day,
courtesy of
Millar.