Warakurna Paintings

Warakurna community is located along the Rawlinson Ranges, near to the West Australia/Northern Territory border, and about 330 kms west from Uluru. The community is in the NPY Lands (Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Lands) on the Great Central Road and within the Shire of Ngaanyatkjarraku. Warakurna was established during the 1970s as an outstation for families wanting to move closer to their traditional lands, and in response to overcrowding at the community at Docker River. The site chosen was near the Giles Weather Station which had access infrastructure and a permanent underground water.

Aboriginal art practice on the NPY Lands spread from Warburton in the 1990s, when the Warburton Arts Project ran a series of painting workshops and many of the artists moved freely between the various communities in the region. In all, six art centres emerged in the communities as a result of these early programs –  Warburton, Patjarr, Irrunytju, Warakurna, Papulankutja and Tjukurla.

The art centre at Warakurna opened in 2005, building on the artists’ access to painting materials that had been available to them in other regional communities, and at Kintore and Kiwirrkura. With a variable population of about 180 people, Warkurna is one of the larger NPY Lands communities. The art centre facilitates the culture sharing and nurturing that is at the core of traditional story-telling and painting, involving Tjukurrpa and contemporary accounts of Aboriginal community life.