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Yannima Pikarli Tommy Watson

Yannima Pikarli Tommy Watson was a senior Pitjantjatjara elder and Law man of Karima skin group. He was born around 1935 in Anumarapiti, 75 kilometers west of Irrunytju, in Western Australia, near the border with the Northern Territory and South Australia. His given names of Yannima and Pikarli relate to specific sites near Anumarapiti.

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Tommy Watson is internationally recognized as one of the most significant Aboriginal artists of our time. He passed away quietly surrounded by family, in November 2017.

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Tommy 'walked in' from the desert in his teens; as a child he lived a traditional life in the Gibson Desert, where he gained an intimate understanding of the environment and his Tjukurrpa (ancestral stories). In his adult years Watson travelled to other communities, including Hermannsburg, where he witnessed Albert Namatjira, the trailblazer of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, paint his famous watercolours. He also travelled to the community of Papunya when the pioneers of the Western Desert Art movement first set down their powerful expressions of their Tjukurrpa. So, whilst Tommy Watson did not begin to paint until his 60s, he was well aware of the Aboriginal art movement. Beginning painting in 2001, he was one of a handful of painters who established the Irrunytju Community Art Centre.

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Emily Kngwarreye's:

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was born around 1910 at Alkahere (Soakage Bore) NT. She is the most successful artist to come out of Utopia and is revered as Australia's most important woman artist. Emily holds the record for highest price ever paid for an Australian woman artist at auction.

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An Eastern Anmatyerre speaker and one of the senior artists of the Utopian art Movement, like many other women at Utopia, Emily moved into painting with acrylics from her silk batik work, which gave her more creative freedom. Her paintings reflect the layered transparency of batik, but her colour is translucent and has been built up through many touches of paint which overlap and meet to create an illusion of depth and movement. Her work is based on the tradition of her people, and their spirituality. She created paintings of her culture as a whole, in her words, "whole lot", focused on Tjukurrpa however presenting a broad picture of the land and how it supports Indigenous way of life.

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Ronnie Tjampitjinpa

Ronnie Tjampitjinpa was born at Muyinnga, about 100 kilometres west of the Kintore Range, just across the Western Australian border. He is the son of Uta Uta Tjangala's older brother, Minpuru Tjangala (c.1899–1976).

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After his initiation into Pintupi law at the site of Yumari, Tjampitjinpa and his younger brother Smithy Zimran Tjampitjinpa walked into the Aboriginal community of Yuendumu.

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Ronnie Tjampitjinpa was one of the youngest of the group of men who began painting at the start of the Western Desert art movement in 1971 and was a founder of Papunya Tula Artists. After settling at Walungurru (Kintore) in 1981, Ronnie became renowned for his distinctive bold, linear style. Early works depicted iconography from the Tingari Cycles, whilst his vibrant red and orange Fire tjukurrpa works have become some of the most iconic paintings from the movement.

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Barbara Weir

Barbara was born in the region of Utopia, northeast of Alice Springs and her mother was the late Minnie Pwerle, a renowned Utopia and Australian artist. Her childhood was disrupted when at age 10, Barbara was taken from her family by a welfare patrol, she is one of the "stolen generation". On returning to her home in 1977, Barbara quickly rekindled her unique relationship with Emily Kame Kngwarreye. By 1996, after the death of Emily, Barbara developed her own skills as an artist with a contemporary style and strong colour palette. Her famous Grass Seed and Mother's Country paintings quickly attracted the attention of collectors here and abroad.

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The exhibition also features works by a number of further artists central to the movement.

through the hands of those who created it.