Spinifex Country
Image credit: Louise Allerton
  • Spinifex Country
  • Image credit: Louise Allerton

The Spinifex Minyma Tjutaku paintings emerged rapidly and powerfully from the early days of the Spinifex Arts Project.  It was during early 1997 in the peak of scorching summer when the artists were getting started at the very remote and tiny community of Tjuntjuntjara.  The community back then was still small, with little infrastructure and no housing but with a small and core group of commanding elders who were in the final stages of their lengthy Native Title claim.  There was an urgency to visually document their custodial rights, birthplaces and Spinifex Tjukurpa but to also experiment with a medium that might augment a successful land claim.

Anne Ngantiri Hogan and Pamela Hogan, 2009
Image credit: Louise Allerton
  • Anne Ngantiri Hogan and Pamela Hogan, 2009
  • Image credit: Louise Allerton
Ngalpingka Simms’s hand
Image credit: Spinifex Arts Project
  • Ngalpingka Simms’s hand
  • Image credit: Spinifex Arts Project

My facilitation of the early days of the Spinifex Arts Project was directed by Spinifex elders.  The medium of acrylic paints and canvas was outshone by the message: we are the traditional owners of our manta (land) and we will show you this by painting it.  So, I brought out paints and canvas that summer.  I hardly had time to prepare canvases and mix paints due to the excitement.  Once Anangu started painting, they hardly stopped for a break for the first three months.

Senior artist Debbie Hansen and Louise recently reflected on how the first Minyma Tjutaku painting unfolded.  Following this Michelle Anderson describes how she first started painting.

Louise: Debbie, can you remember the early days of the painting?

Debbie: I remember all the boards the old people were painting on.  They were the first paintings, and Anangu were very excited to paint.  All the minyma tjuta and wati tjuta painted their country and it was really important for them.  They waited a long time for Native Title and they wanted to paint their manta (land).  I remember that first big painting we did, all the Minyma Tjuta.  That was that Native [Title] Painting, the big one we did that was at the lake where we got our land back.

Louise: Ok yes, I remember that too, the big Native Title painting which was the first big Minyma Tjutaku.

Louise: Can you remember how that painting got started?

Debbie: Minyma tjuta and wati tjuta can’t paint on the same canvas because they both have their own stories.  The women wanted to take theirs parari, a long way away from the men so they could sing inma when they painted.  They felt comfortable in private where they could share women’s stories and songs without the men hearing.  After that they decided to take the painting to that sandhill near the lake.  You know that place where we got our land back?

Jessica Veronica Brown in the studio, October 2024
Image credit: Spinifex Arts Project
  • Jessica Veronica Brown in the studio, October 2024
  • Image credit: Spinifex Arts Project
Spinifex
Image credit: Louise Allerton
  • Spinifex
  • Image credit: Louise Allerton

Louise: Oh yes!  That place.  Yes, the women finished the painting out there in private, sitting at that sandhill.

Louise: How did they know where to sit when they painted all together?

Debbie: They knew where to sit because they know all the birthplaces of the other women.  They said ‘I will put my birthplace here, and you were born parari (a long way), so you sit further over there.  This is how they started the painting.  They all know their places and Tjukurpa.

Debbie: They hung up that painting behind the judge at the lake area when we got our Native Title.  The old people got really excited because they waited so long to get their manta back.  Judith Donaldson, Mr Pennington, Mr Walker, they were all dancing.

Michelle Anderson is a successful emerging and next generation Spinifex artist, grand daughter of the late Kunmanara (Myrtle) Pennington.  In the early 2000s there was no art centre building and many of the works were produced during intense bush trips to sites of significance including Ilkurlka, Pauyiya and the remote and sacred Women’s site of Tjintirrkara.  Despite these trips being rugged and intense, Michelle would sometimes join in, observing and facilitating elders where she was instructed.  She participated in some of the later Minyma Tjuta paintings.

Louise: Hi Michelle.  When did you first join in with the painting project?

Michelle: I went on those bush trips in the early days and walked around and watched all the old women painting.  I went to Ilkurlka once and I was watching and helping prime canvas.

Kunmanara Tjaruwa Woods working on a Women’s Collab, 2013
Image credit: Amanda Dent
  • Kunmanara Tjaruwa Woods working on a Women’s Collab, 2013
  • Image credit: Amanda Dent
Desert Cyprus
Image credit: Louise Allerton
  • Desert Cyprus
  • Image credit: Louise Allerton

Louise: And you have started painting at the Arts Centre now?  How did you first start painting?

Michelle: I watched my Nana (Myrtle Pennington) painting.  She told me to watch her and learn.  She told me stories and Tjukurpa from Kanpa (the country where she was born).  She was getting sick then and I helped her on her paintings.

Louise: And you have started painting on your own now?  What do you paint?

Michelle: I paint the same as my Nana.  I paint her country, Kanpa.  And I like to use about 3 or 4 colours, that’s all.  I learnt from her and what she was painting.  I like to go and paint at the Art Centre in the afternoon when it’s quiet.  I like painting when it’s quiet.

Sadly over the last five years, Tjuntjuntjara has lost many of the elders who first initiated the Spinifex Arts Project in that intense summer of ’97.  These artists who dedicated themselves to a 30 year practice, successfully blending sophisticated Spinifex culture with aesthetic vibrancy, have passed this knowledge and commitment to the next generations.  Marcia Thompson, Veronica Brown and Michelle Anerson represent these younger artists who have long observed, listened and learnt from their elder minyma tjuta.  They represent the signature Spinifex genre in new and experimental ways.

Michelle Anderson working
Image credit: Spinifex Arts Project
  • Michelle Anderson working
  • Image credit: Spinifex Arts Project
Pamela Hogan and Kunmanara Myrtle Pennington
Image credit: Amanda Dent
  • Pamela Hogan and Kunmanara Myrtle Pennington
  • Image credit: Amanda Dent
Ilkurlka Fog
Image credit: Louise Allerton
  • Ilkurlka Fog
  • Image credit: Louise Allerton

Words by Louise Allerton, Debbie Hansen and Michelle Anderson.

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