News from February 2020

Japingka WA -14 February to 25 March 2020

Watercolour Landscapes – Central Australia

The Japingka Gallery in WA will showcase a curated display of paintings by Iltja Ntjarra’s artists, as well as landscape watercolours by previous generation masters.  The exhibition will launch on February 14th and will highlight works by acclaimed watercolourists Ivy Pareroultja. The display will also include two unique silk paintings by community leaders Mervyn Rubuntja and Hubert Pareroultja.

David Wroth from Japingka Gallery takes us on a tour of a watercolour exhibition from Central Australia that explores how the different generations approach painting their homelands.

The watercolour painters of Central Australia are amongst the most recognisable of Aboriginal artist groups. Albert Namatjira began painting the West MacDonnell landscapes in his ancestral country in the 1930s.

We now have an exhibition of works from contemporary artists, some of whom are grandchildren of Albert Namatjira. The paintings are extraordinary things. They are all about exceptional structures found in the West MacDonnell Ranges – ragged hilltop ridges and rocky knolls and dramatic horizons. The colours are quite extraordinary. Many of the works feature the blues and purples of the distant ranges placed against the pinks and oranges of the rocky structures in the foreground.