Java.Oct.2017

CONTEMPORARY ABORIGINAL
WOMEN’S ART AT SMOCA
By Amy Young
Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women
Artists From Aboriginal Australia is one of the
current exhibitions at the Scottsdale Museum of
Contemporary Art (SMoCA). It brings together work
by nine contemporary artists hailing from remote
Aboriginal areas.
This work by artists Nonggirrnga Marawili, Wintjiya
Napaltjarri, Yukultji Napangati, Angelina Pwerle,
Carlene West, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Lena
Yarinkura, Gulumbu Yunupingu and Nyapanyapa
Yunupingu is on a national tour, with this leg
including the full spectrum of the collection—70
works in total, many of which are on loan from
personal collections, marking the first time they’ve
been on public view.
The exhibition includes several of Australia’s most
prominent artists, some of whom have works in the
Australian National Museum collection. What is
tremendously vital about Marking the Infinite is reflected
in its title. It is a testament to tradition, drive and
perseverance. This work hails from a culture where
only since the 1980s have women been able to sell
their artwork—and that was only after work by their
male counterparts was already in the market.
This work shows each artist’s respective strengths
and outlines the artists’ personal and cultural
histories. This is a dynamic group of women
who have numerous achievements among them.
Nyapanyapa Yunupingu has exhibited at the Sydney
Biennale, and her sister Gulumbu Yunupingu has
work in the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. The sisters
took their artistic cue from their father—a cultural
leader and painter—who encouraged them to follow
suit and study him as he practiced the technique of
bark painting.
Lena Yarinkura, from the central Arnhem Land,
began crafting with lessons from her mother, a
weaver. Together, they wove baskets and created
fiber animals, building on that familial tradition. But
Yarinkura’s need to evolve found her expanding on
those initial techniques to play with new stitching
and shape combinations. Painting and sculptural
work became a part of her artistic toolkit, and she
has gone on to utilize some non-traditional methods
to create large-scale installations that tell stories of
the people from her region.
It’s the intricacies in many of these works that make
the exhibition so engaging. There is an attention to
detail that is meaningful. Regina Pilawuk Wilson’s
large Sun Mat features synthetic polymer paint on
canvas that invites you to take a slow journey to its
center. That inner point, either an origin or a destination,
doesn’t seem to signify a finality, but an option that
lets you know exploration is a key part of your trip.
Her work has been shown at the Moscow Biennale.
18 JAVA
MAGAZINE