Art Communities

Yuendumu Community is 300 Kms north-west of Alice Springs and is the major centre for Warlpiri artists of the Tanami Desert. Warlpiri artists began painting there in the early 1970’s as a direct result of family and ceremonial ties between Papunya and Yuendumu. Yuendumu became only the second community after Papunya (Geoffrey Bardon havin provided the impetus at Papunya in 1969) to establish itself as a centre for desert artists.

The Yuendumu Community became internationally famous in 1983, when the senior men and elders, concerned at the impact of Western culture on the Community’s youth, decided to paint the Community’s school doors with traditional motifs and designs. These were intended to inculcate the children with their own culture and to remind them of their own rich heritage. The school doors became famous and valuable/historical artworks in their own right. This created such interest that it was decided that an art centre should be formed, and in 1985 Warlukurlangu Artists was created.

This has been a critical success for artists at Yuendumu, allowing their works to be promoted to an international audience, including at the ‘Dreamings’ exhibition in New York in 1988 and the ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ in Paris in 1989. Since then continuous exhibitions both internationally and Australia-wide have established an image of the Yuendumu style, typified by fine dotting technique and a multi-hued colour palette.

In 2005 Yuendumu celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Warlukurlangu Art centre with the opening a new purpose-built art centre building and the promotion a national program of exhibitions. Senior artists as well as emerging ones are expressing a new found sense of freedom in their treatment of traditional Jukurpa (Dreamings) and the stories, sites and family histories of their ancestral lands of the Tanami Desert. Their paintings have a great vitality and freshness that reinvigorates the rich tradition of Warlpiri culture.

Jorna

Judy Watson

Shorty Robertson

Children Painting	Paddy at work
View from Mawurrji	View of Yuendumu