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.
Talking about Country – Possum Sisters
7 April – 17 May 2017
The strong artistic family traditions inherited by Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi and her sister Michelle come from their father Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932 – 2002). These artistic traditions include the stories and iconographic designs associated with their clan country in Central Australia.
Made in Ochre – Kimberley Artists
7 April – 17 May 2017
Long prized for its ceremonial significance and continually used to replenish images on sacred sites over the centuries, ochre remains the defining art material for many Kimberley artists. This exhibition presents some of the greats of the Kimberley ochre tradition, artists working across distant settlements including Warmun, Kalumburu, Derby and Kununurra.
Kurun Warun Exhibition
10 February – 29 March 2017
Kurun Warun’s predecessors have lived around the Western District Lakes area of Victoria for thousands of years. They include Girai Wurrung and Djargurd Wurrung people from the country around Warrnambool, and the Gunditjmara people from further north at Portland and Lake Condah.
Tanami Desert Artists – Yuendumu & Nyirripi
10 February – 29 March 2017
Warlpiri artists from Yuendumu were amongst the first communities to take up the desert art movement that spread from Papunya. In fact the senior men of the community established a Museum for the cultural artefacts in 1971, at a similar time when the Papunya artists began to record the first stories painted on murals and then on boards. The Yuendumu Men’s Museum contained sand paintings and murals and was seen as a safe house for important cultural material.
Members Christmas Collection 2016
We have been through the best collection of indigenous artworks and made a selection that we think you will love. By placing the best of our choices for colour, vitality, design and sheer joy, we hope to bring you a page of exciting artworks to ponder.…
Rosella Namok & Lockhart River Painters
11 November – 24 December 2016
Lockhart River artists Rosella Namok, Fiona Omeenyo & Samantha Hobson exhibit paintings of their homelands in far North Queensland. Since the late 1990s this vibrant group of contemporary artists has created Indigenous artworks reflecting the tropical heat and coastal reef shorelines of the region.
Elsie Napanangka Granites Mina Mina Women’s Dreaming
11 November – 24 December 2016
Elsie Napanangka Granites has one of the longest artists’ working histories in her home community of Yuendumu, north-west from Alice Springs. Elsie began painting in 1987, showing traditional Women’s Dreaming stories of the important Mina Mina ceremonies.
Camel Camp & Beyond – Utopia Artists of the Eastern Desert
2 September – 28 October 2016
Camel Camp is one of about twenty outstation camps on the Utopia Homelands. These small settlements have been the basis of family life for the Alywarr and Anmatyerr people. Leading artists include Angelina Ngal Pwerle, Kathleen Ngale, Gladdy Kemarre, Polly Ngale, Susan Pitjara Hunter and Josie Petrick Kemarre.
George Tuckerbox Exhibition – Art from the Great Sandy Desert
2 September – 28 October 2016
George Tuckerbox painted the country and waterholes that he remembered from his childhood, from the time when his family lived off the resources of their traditional lands. Many of his paintings show the parallel rows of sandhills that flow out from Central Australia and dominate the landscape.
Maria Josette Orsto Exhibition
22 July – 24 August 2016
Tiwi artist Maria Josette Orsto, b.1962, combines traditional techniques with new processes, creating exciting new works in ochre. Exhibiting along with carved sculptures by artists from Tiwi Design.
Artists from Ngukurr
22 July – 24 August 2016
Artists from Ngukurr in S-E Arnhem Land exhibit images of their community and their traditions, often colourful narratives of everyday life. Included are representatives of the current generation of artists from Ngukurr, and some older historical works.
Sarrita King & Tarisse King 2016
8 April – 30 May, 2016
Sarrita King & Tarisse King return to Japingka Gallery with more of their exquisite multi- layered paintings of Ancestors, Salt Lake country & the elements
The Panel Show – 12 Aboriginal Artists
8 April – 30 May, 2016
Paintings in the panel format 120 x 30 cm created by twelve artists of the Central Desert including Thomas Tjapaltjarri, Rosemary Petyarre and Joylene Reid Napangardi
Ochre Painters of the Kimberley
19 February – 30 March, 2016
Kimberley artists have maintained strong links to the ochre painting of their forebears, a tradition that is expressed in rock painting and ceremonial body designs that are embedded in the culture. Today’s artists express aspects of their culture using earth pigments transformed into paintings on canvas.
Turbo Brown Exhibition
19 February - 30 March, 2016
Trevor Turbo Brown paints with directness, energy and focus – his subject is the outdoor world of birds and animals. He explains that this relates to a time when he was homeless, living in Mildura on the banks of the Murray River.
Fine Dot Artists
27 November – 23 December, 2015
The work of these three Central Desert artists reflect the best of the fine dot art style and the deep cultural links this has with the ancient culture of desert life. Jorna Newberry, Wentja Napaltjarri & Eva Nelson Napaltjarri exhibit new paintings.
Mowanjum – Paintings & Prints
27 November – 23 December, 2015
New paintings and prints from the artists of Mowanjum community display the ongoing traditions that have their history in the timeless rock paintings of the west Kimberley
Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi & Michelle Possum Nungurrayi
9 October – 14 November 2015
Sisters Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi and Michelle Possum Nungurrayi have carried on the legacy of their father, the late artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, who died in 2002. Both these second generation artists have established their reputations painting the ancestral stories that have come down to them from their parents and grandparents.
Our Mother’s Dreaming – Katherine Marshall Nakamarra & Debra Young Nakamarra
9 October – 14 November, 2015
Walangkura Napanangka (1946 – 2014) re-created the great Pintupi Tingari stories of her homelands, using the graphic symbols of the Country and the Tingari journey to show what happened there in the Dreaming.
Rosella Namok 2015
28 August – 30 September 2015
Rosella Namok returns to Japingka Gallery with a new exhibition focused on the coastal lifestyle of tropical north Queensland, with her Monsoon Rain series. Rosella Namok rose to prominence in the 1990s with the Lockhart River Art Gang, young artists working out of Cape York. Rosella’s paintings combine contemporary techniques with traditional story-telling and cultural narratives.