Best Sellers and Memorable Works 2024
We thought we'd share some of our highlights from 2024.
These were moments of significance for our team. They include the excitement of an emerging artist. Other times, we paused to reflect on the sad passing of one of the great artists from the Aboriginal contemporary art movement.
We've included other artists who are consistently producing excellent work that is a joy to show at the gallery.
Here they all are. The best sellers, the brilliant, the emerging and those who will be missed. What a wonderful collection of extraordinary Australian talent.
Sonya Edney
Sonya Edney's fifth solo exhibition at Japingka in 2024 produced fascinating new works, continuing her remarkable trajectory with the gallery. A Gascoyne artist whose paintings capture the vast spinifex country and river plains of her homeland, Sonya brings a grand sense of colour that recreates the experience of being inside the landscape. Her ability to consistently deliver captivating work has been evident since her near sell-out debut exhibition in 2019.
View: Sonya Edney Artist Page
Michelle Cooper
Michelle Cooper's contributions to Japingka's group exhibitions in 2024 have been highlighted by her mesmerising images of the night sky, full of luminous colour. Her artistic journey began under the guidance of her paternal grandmother, Kuntjil Cooper, where she learned significant Women's Dreaming stories from Pitjantjatjara culture, including Two Sisters and Seven Sisters Dreamings.
Maureen Hudson
In 2024, Maureen Hudson contributed to some group exhibitions that showcased her remarkable images of Tali sand dunes from Central Australia, with their intricate and interconnecting lines. A Warlpiri artist from Mt Allan, she masterfully captures the rolling sandhill country of the Central Desert, embedding Water Dreaming and women's ceremonial designs that connect deeply to her country's ritual significance.
Andrew Highfold
Andrew Highfold's productivity as an artist shines through his smaller pieces, which offer captivating views of the desert after rain and during the dry season. with his connections to Alice Springs and communities to the south-west of Alice, his journey as a contemporary artist is marked by experimentation with style and technique. He carries forward his family's stories while capturing the intensity of the Central Australian landscape.
Madeline Purdie
Madeline Purdie's solo exhibition brought fresh ochre paintings to Japingka, continuing her family's artistic legacy. Coming from one of the most respected families in the East Kimberley, her artistic lineage includes her mother, Shirley Purdie, and grandmother, Madigan Thomas, who have both been internationally renowned ochre artists and highly regarded lawwomen of the Gija community.
Yinarupa Gibson Nangala
Yinarupa Gibson Nangala's very distinctive style shines through in her colourful small paintings, capturing sand hills and lines of trees with water holes that truly capture the essence of her country. As a Pintupi artist from Kiwirrkura and daughter of Papunya Tula artist Anatjari Tjampitjinpa, her work clearly marks the iconography of landmarks and sites used by her people for ceremonial rites connected to Tingari ancestors.
Jackie Wirramanda
Jackie Wirramanda's debut introduction to Japingka Gallery has been impressive. Her wonderful works, based on salt lake country in inland northern Victoria, capture gallery visitors' attention. Her art carries significant weight, exploring the narrative of female experience and women's contributions to local Indigenous communities. This has earned her representation in corporate and private collections both in Australia and internationally.
Pammy Foster
Pammy Foster's work from Barkly Arts captures the essence of bush medicine plants and bush foods, bringing forth paintings full of colour, excitement, and joy. A Waramungu and Alyawarr woman born in Tennant Creek, she creates her vibrant works drawing on her experience of being raised between Ampilatwatja and Wutunugurra.
Ian Rictor
Ian Rictor is one of the many significant artists who work from Spinifex Arts Project, which is located in the Victoria Desert near the border of Western Australia and South Australia. His people stayed in the desert until modern times. Ian Rictor's work is a fabulous recognition of traditional country and traditional waterholes. It is always wonderful to have this artist's work and his whole community on show at Japingka.
Rachael Nambula
Rachael Nambula's speciality in smaller paintings brings lively, colourful images of bush yam and other bush fruits that consistently intrigue gallery visitors. Based in Alice Springs but born in the Utopia region, she focuses predominantly on Yam Dreaming and Bush Medicine Leaves, bringing these traditional stories to life through her distinctive style.
View: Artwork Under $600
Patrick Mung Mung
It is always intriguing to see this artist's work. Patrick's painting was the highlight of a beautiful show of senior artists from the Warmun community in 2024. Born at Yunurrel (Spring Creek) in 1944, he worked as a stockman in the East Kimberley before beginning his painting journey in 1991. He later played a crucial role in establishing the artist- and community-owned art centre at Warmun in 1998.
Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi
Gabriella's intricate images of the Seven Sisters and her grandmother's country showcase colours unique to her family's style of painting. As the eldest daughter of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, she became accomplished in her teens, absorbing the rich cultural stories of her family's inheritance and expressing them through warm, vibrant colours.
Thomas Tjapaltjarri
Thomas, who passed away in 2024, left a lasting legacy with one of his great paintings, which found a home in Fremantle. His passing was a great loss to the art world and his extended family. His remarkable journey began when he and his family emerged from the Gibson Desert in 1984 after 20 years of isolation, settling in Kiwirrkura. There, he and his brothers developed into important artists painting Tingari Dreaming sites.
Janet Golder Kngwarreye
Janet's paintings of bush foods and bush yams on traditional country, with their rich colour and fine detail, have always had broad appeal in the gallery. A significant mid-career artist from Utopia, she carries forward the artistic legacy of her grandmothers, artists Polly Ngale and Angelina Pwerle, creating colourful images that combine Country with bushtucker stories.
View: Janet Golder Kngwarreye