Aboriginal art exhibitions are on display at Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery, 47 High Street, Fremantle - Mon-Fri 10am-5.00pm and Sat & Sun 12-5pm. There is no entrance fee to view the exhibitions.
Online art exhibition links are accessible below for those not able to attend the gallery. Advance viewing and purchasing of exhibition works is available to subscribers of the Japingka Newsletter.
Andrew Highfold – On the Lands
24 February – 22 March 2023
Andrew Tjupurrula Highfold paints aspects of traditional Country on APY Lands as it transforms between the dry and rainy seasons. Andrew reconnected with his birth family when he was 24, and this led him to further research his own Aboriginal heritage. His work as a painter is part of this journey – Andrew says that his paintings come as gifts from his mother and grandmother’s spirits. Andrew uses highly detailed dotting techniques to bring his landscapes to life, painting the creekbeds and rockholes that were at the centre of family life in earlier times.
Gallery Collection
24 November 2022 - 25 January 2023
Many of our favourite artists need more wall space to display their wonderful artworks at their best. We have been busy in the stockrooms and around the gallery, selecting paintings that will enhance this exhibition and do justice to the many fine artists who created them.
Ada Beasley
24 November 2022 – 8 January 2023
Ada Pula Beasley has been painting since 2012 and her artworks show the layered landscape of Alyawarr country in Central Australia. Ada says: “I do painting to look back on the old days when we went hunting. My Mum took us out looking for bush medicine and yams and goanna.” Ada is involved in teaching younger artists about country and bush medicines. These include Mulga and Witchetty trees, River Red Gum, native Fuchsia, spinifex grass and the many varieties of bush flowers.
Small Works – Strong Artists
14 October – 18 November 2022
Small artworks from leading artists, many in the sizes 90 x 60 cm and 60 x 60 cm – small art that makes a substantial statement. Amongst the exhibiting artists are Jeannie Petyarre, Joylene Reid Napangardi, Michelle Butler Nakamarra, Nellie Marks Nakamarra, Genevieve Kemarr Loy, Kellyanne Nungarrayi Gibson, Yinarupa Gibson Nangala and Winnie Reid Nakamarra.
Utopia Artists
14 October – 18 November 2022
Senior artists from Utopia Homelands present significant artworks based on stories and cultural practices from their clan country. The exhibition includes paintings by the late Cowboy Loy Pwerl (1941-2022), an Eastern Anmatyerr speaker, and family members, wife Elizabeth Kunoth Kngwarray and daughter Genevieve Kemarr Loy. Other artists include sisters Angelina, Kathleen and Polly Ngal and sisters Lucky, Ruby and Sarah Morton Kngwarrey from Rocket Range community at Utopia.
Dr George Tjapaltjarri: Ngangkari – Clever Man
19 August – 30 September 2022
Dr George Tjapaltjarri (c1930- 2017) was born in country south west of Jupiter Well in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia. His family language group was Pintupi/Luritja. The family first made contact with white settlements when they walked out of the desert in 1964. Dr George was a traditional Ngangkari, Aboriginal medicine man. His artworks possess a wonderful rawness and boldness, conveying his strong continuous association with traditional country and its ceremonies.
Rohin Kickett – Beautiful Dead
3 June – 20 July 2022
Ballardong Noongar artist Rohin Kickett presents beautiful images of inland salt lake and farming country of the Western Australian wheatbelt region. Rohin chose the title ‘Beautiful Dead’ for this Exhibition to reflect the great beauty of the inland salt lakes, especially when seen from the air, as opposed to the view at his feet where the salt and mud gave way to a world where nothing could grow or flourish.
Amanda Westley – Colours of Ngarrindjeri Country
19 August – 30 September 2022
Colours of Ngarrindjeri Country is Amanda Westley’s third solo exhibition at Japingka Gallery. Amanda distils the mood of landscapes around the Coorong, Fleurieu Peninsula and Victor Harbor regions of South Australia. Her paintings read as intense landscapes that hold the rhythms and moods of these coastal places. Amanda suggests the forces of nature that are shaping the landscape and our wider environment.
Sandhill Country – Paintings of Inland Australia
3 June - 20 July 2022
The defining features of Australias expansive deserts are the sandhills that give structure to the landscape and often create micro zones within the vast openness of the desert. Structures of the landscape also inform the cultural markings and patterns that appear in Tingari and other sacred markings that link people, landscape and creation myths. Nineteen artists have contributed to this exhibition.
Arlpwe Artists: Off the Beaten Track
8 April - 24 May 2022
Arlpwe Art & Culture Centre is located on Kaytetye Country in the community of Ali Curung, 380 km north of Alice Springs and 30kms east of the Stuart Highway. The art centre represents artists from four main langauge groups – Kaytetye, Warlpiri, Alyawarr and Warumungu. ‘I think there’s a bit of an Ali Curung renaissance taking place’ says Arts Manager Levi McLean. ‘The work is beautiful, fresh, and profound.’
Stumpy Brown – Ngupawarlu My Country
8 April - 24 May 2022
Nyuju Stumpy Brown (1924- 2011) – her boldly coloured renditions of her ceremonial country of Ngupawarlu sing out with an intensity that highlights the spiritual significance of this country to her identity as a painter and as a cultural lawwoman. Stumpy has always been an important woman in the community for law and culture. She carries the Women’s Law from Wangkatjungka side right through to desert side at Balgo. She is a senior law woman and traditional owner and custodian of Ngupawarlu.
Sonya Edney – Recent Paintings
25 February - 29 March 2022
Sonya Edney returns with her third solo exhibition at Japingka Gallery, showing Recent Paintings of the Gascoyne region. The artist’s work shows the open spinifex country of the upper Gascoyne area and the effects of the seasons at play on the landscape. Her work displays wildflowers coming into bloom after rains, the flood plains of the Gascoyne River and the secluded waterholes protected by trees and shrubs. The Aboriginal stories and paintings of the Night Skies are dramatic in scope and intensity.
Barkly Artists
25 February - 29 March 2022
Barkly Artists represent painters from four communities- Canteen Creek, Epenarra Artists at Wutunugurra, Tartukula Artists at Tennant Creek and Kulumindini Arts at Elliott. Barkly Regional Arts services upto 20% of the total area of the Northern Territ…
Sounds of Summer 2
26 November 2021 - 28 January 2022
Sounds of Summer 2 displays artworks filled with light and warmth from Indigenous artists. These are some of our favourite artists selected by the team at Japingka Gallery. Artists include Bernadine Johnson, Naomi Price Pwerle, Gracie Morton Pwerle and Jeannie Petyarre from the Utopia Homelands. Jorna Newberry, Nellie Marks Nakamarra and Winnie Reid Nakamarra from Western Desert communities. Note: paintings are unstretched.
Julie Nangala Robinson – Pirlinyanu
15 October - 18 November 2021
Julie Nangala Robinson is the elder daughter of famed artist Dorothy Napangardi. She has been an artist since the late 1990s and follows in the style of her mother Dorothy, to the extent that she uses minimal and contemporary designs in constructing her artworks. Many of her paintings are based on the Water Dreaming site at Pirlinyanu, which is her traditional country.
Yondee Shane Hansen – Derbarl Yerrigan
15 October 2021 - 28 January 2022
Recent paintings by Noongar artist Yondee Shane Hansen focus on traditional songlines and walking paths along the waterways associated with Derbarl Yerrigan, the Swan River on the coastal plains around Perth. His paintings show the interconnected places of the Swan River and the large coastal lakes at Joondalup and urban Perth.
Anangu Women Artists – Strength in Beauty
30 July - 26 September 2021
Anangu Women Artists of the APY Lands are recognised for their boldly coloured paintings telling the Tjukurrpa creation stories of their homelands. The narratives in the exhibition ‘Strength in Beauty’ centre on Women Creation Ancestors who travelled the country, laying down important ceremonial sites and customary law.
Rosella Namok Recent Paintings
30 July - 26 September 2021
Rosella Namok brings the tropical heat and the coastal colours of Far North Queensland to her latest exhibition at Japingka Gallery. Rosella uses fluid paint surfaces that she works into, scraping back linear designs into the underlayers of solid colour. This exhibition has a lighter feel with the artist using pinks and gold colours and some pastel tones added to her palette.
Kurun Warun Paintings 2021
14 May - 30 June 2021
Kurun Warun creates artworks that are expansive and capture the rhythms of the land and waterways where indigenous people have lived and cultivated and hunted for thousands of years. The structures in his paintings refer to bodypainting and hunting. They also reflect the managed environment of Aboriginal lands in the Western District of Victoria where his family come from.
Rover Thomas & Kimberley Ochre Painters
14 May - 30 June 2021
Rover Thomas and Kimberley Ochre Painters, presenting artworks by major Kimberley artists using ochre pigments. Many of these artists helped set benchmarks for a new generation of painters to understand and aspire to. Artists include Rover Thomas, Jack Britten, Queenie McKenzie, Henry Wambini, Beerbee Mungnari and Freddie Timms.