A YEAR has passed since Newcastle artist Eila Vinwynn took up a contract to run the Ninuku Arts Centre in the tiny South Australian town of Kalka, a few kilometres away from the junction of the SA, Northern Territory and Western Australian borders.
Kalka and the larger nearby hamlet of Pipalyatjara are within an Indigenous area known as the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara or APY Lands.
Headcounts show that fewer than 200 people live in Pipalyatjara. Many of them are artists, and extremely successful ones at that.
When the Newcastle Herald approached Vinwynn last week, she was having coffee with sisters Angela Watson and Anyupa Nelson, who had flown with Vinwynn into Sydney a few days previously.
They had been scheduled to travel to Moree for the opening of "Anangu Jazz", an "inter-generational" exhibition of Ninuku work.
Unfortunately, they had been unable to get into Moree because of the floods, and last Saturday's official opening at Moree's Yama Ganu gallery was cancelled, although the exhibition is proceeding.
Toby Osmond from Yam Ganu gallery said the floods were "a terrible business", and they had little choice but to reluctantly cancel the visit.
"Many people were still cut off and most of the town went into clean-up mode over the exhibition opening weekend," Osmond said.
Back in Pipalyatjara yesterday, Vinwynn explained how she had moved there from Newcastle, but would return when the contract was over.
"We'd always planned to stop off here," Vinwynn said of last week's stop-off.
"But when we couldn't get to Moree, we spent a bit more time, visiting a few more galleries, meeting more people."
When I asked Vinwynn what her friends thought of Newcastle, she said: "They liked it, thought it was 'ninti', that it was a good place."
Vinwynn says Ninuku is one of seven Indigenous-owned art centres across the APY Lands, with as many as 40 artists supported in their work.
She says Angela and Anyupa are part of a smaller and highly dedicated group, whose lives revolve around art.
A web search shows their works typically start at a few thousand dollars each.
" The songlines and stories the women paint are located in and around Pipalyatjara," Vinwynn said.
"They maintain the practice of visiting the sites, retelling the stories through song and reinventing them in paint at Ninuku.
"The paintings sent out into the world from this rich centre, reverberate with local intensities.
"They are the real deal."
Vinwynn says she is talking with the University of Newcastle galleries about an exhibition of Ninuku artists. Meanwhile, their latest international exhibition, in Brussels, began last month and ends next week.
- Separately, UoN gallery has an Indigenous exhibition, Songspirals, at its gallery on the Callaghan campus until December 9.
-
WHAT DO YOU THINK? We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on the Newcastle Herald website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. Sign up for a subscription here.
