Sarrita King Paintings

Who is Sarrita King Nampin?

Japingka Gallery presents paintings by one of Australia’s young rising stars, Aboriginal artist Sarrita King Nampin. Sarrita had her first art training as a teenager with her artist father, the late William King Jungala (1966- 2007). Sarrita continues to define her artistic identity, steadily creating a contemporary style with cultural references that connect land, experiences, family and traditional ideas of communication and kinship. Sarrita’s paintings are homages to the important first generation of Aboriginal artists who have laid down a path for succeeding generations.

What is The Wave Hill Connection with Sarrita King Nampin?

Sarrita King Nampin was born in 1988 in Adelaide, and has an older sister and fellow artist Tarisse King. Sarrita King inherits her Australian Aboriginality from her father, William King Jungala, a Gurindji man from the Northern Territory. The Gurindji people came to be known by the Australian public during the 1960s and 1970s when their group working at Wave Hill cattle station led a landmark case, the first successful land rights claim in Australia. Similarly Sarrita King inherits an assertive individuality, determined to communicate the inseparable connection she and her ancestors have with the Australian land.

What is Sarrita’s Connection To Culure?

She lived her early life in Darwin and it was there that her connections to her Aboriginality and her land were first nurtured. The extreme weather and primal landscape of the tropical north provided strong subject ideas for her first paintings, developed when Sarrita was sixteen.
Sarrita paints using traditional Aboriginal symbols and techniques, but she also combines them with innovative and unusual techniques passed on to her from her father, as well as ideas she has developed through her own working methods.

How is Sarrita King Nampin regarded in the art world?

Sarrita King Nampin has been involved in over twenty exhibitions and is represented in galleries in all Australian states, and in major Australian and international art collections. A selection of paintings by Sarrita King is available from Japingka Gallery, where collectors can buy Aboriginal art online with certainty of quality, authenticity and provenance of art works.

Aboriginal Artist Status

Rising Star

Sarrita In Her Own Words

On Growing Up

“I grew up in Darwin. I was born in Adelaide but moved to Darwin with my Mum and my stepdad. That was definitely the beginning of my cultural journey. My father’s family lived in Darwin, even though he wasn’t there we spent a lot of time with his family. We often lived out bush and helped out in their community shops.”

 

My Mother’s Influence

“From the get-go our house always had Aboriginal art on the walls. Mum spent some of her younger years out at Ngukurr and Katherine. She tells stories about the artists she’s met. Sitting and talking with her is just like a book in itself. It was common back then to trade a canvas for a lift. Mum has always treasured those paintings and put them on the walls. There was always a source of connection back to those memories for her as well. She loved being included in the community. I think when Mum and Dad separated it’s one thing she missed was that connection to the bush. I think she’s a bush girl at heart.”

Father’s Influence

“Art’s always been in our lives. I didn’t even realise that Dad was painting or was artistic at all. That changed when I went down to Adelaide for a basketball trip. He had our whole team come over to this studio. It was mind boggling for me, let alone everybody else.
What I saw was a transition of his work. He used to do a traditional kind of iconography which was family story telling artwork. I doubt if anyone’s ever actually seen that work which included a lot of carvings. Then he moved to more of a full time career. He was engaging people and bringing them into the cultural story through his elements series. It was striking art.”

 On An Art Practice

“I’d definitely never seen art like that when I was young. I’d only been exposed to traditional ochres. These were mostly drawings because we were close to Arnhem Land and a lot of x-ray style images. His new work was something I’d never seen. Even then I walked away from that day knowing that now that’s what he did. I still didn’t understand that art was ever going to be a path for me.
Then when I finished school I moved to Adelaide to go to university and started to play netball for the State side. I moved in with my sister and my Dad. My sister was already working with him, learning his techniques and promoting the culture. I was just around and that’s when it kind of captured my life. I didn’t think, and he would never have thought, that I was going to be an artist.”

Aboriginal Art As Connection

“Dad had a way of drawing people in. It might be me or somebody he met or somebody that he’d known when he was younger. He used the art as a way to bridge barriers, to bring people in, to connect with people just to talk. I think that he was almost a professional talker as well as an artist.”

Taking On a Manager

“That was really when art captured me. After Dad’ s passing, I think that’s when art became even more important in our lives. Tarisse and I were both painting by then. I already had artworks out in public galleries thanks to my manager Keith. Dad told Keith to make sure he promoted my artwork and he has.”

Selected Group Exhibitions

2006  Jungarra Exhibition, Cairns QLD
2006  Katherine Art Exhibition, Katherine NT
2006  City Mob, Adelaide SA
2008  Aboriginal Art Auction, Customs House, Sydney NSW
2008  Canterbury Art Exhibition, Canterbury VIC
2008  The EWB exhibition, 14 exhibitions across Australia
2010  Divas on the Cusp, Art on Hastings. Noosa Heads QLD
2010  Canterbury Art Exhibition, Canterbury VIC
2011  In Black and White, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA
2011  Big and Bold, Gallery 577, Melbourne VIC
2011  Sarrita King: Language of the Earth
2012  Sarrita King
2013  The King Sisters – Sarrita King & Tarisse King
2014  Sarrita King & Tarisse King
2016  Sarrita King & Tarisse King
2017  Ancestors, Element, Heritage – Sarrita King & Tarisse King
2019  Tarisse King & Sarrita King
2020 Sounds of Summer, Japingka Gallery, Perth
2020 60 by 60 – Small Paintings, Japingka Gallery, Perth
2020 Director’s Choice 2020, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2020 Top Ten – Our Most Popular Artists 2019, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2021 Top Ten Artists 2020, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney

Links

Sarrita King – Aboriginal Art Association of Australia

View:

Exhibition: The King Sisters – Sarrita King & Tarisse King – 2013
Exhibition: Sarrita King & Tarisse King – 2014
Exhibition: Sarrita King & Tarisse King – 2016
Exhibition: Ancestors, Elements, Heritage – Sarrita King & Tarisse King – 2017
Exhibition: Tarisse King & Sarrita King – 2019
Sarrita & Tarisse King – Reflecting On Gurindji and Wave Hill