The Araluen Cultural Precinct, formerly the Araluen Centre for Arts & Entertainment, in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia, is a cultural centre incorporating museums and a theatre.
The Araluen Arts Centre features four art galleries and a significant collection of art from across the region. Each year it holds Central Australia's largest First Nations art event, Desert Mob. Live performances of drama, dance and music as well as international and independent movies are shown in the theatre, which seats about five hundred people.
The Museum of Central Australia, located on site in another building with the Strehlow Research Centre for Aboriginal Culture, displays many locally found minerals, describes geologic formations of the area.
Nearby is the Central Australian Aviation Museum, with planes and radio equipment, which is also home to the local ham radio group.
Central Craft is a crafts centre with a contemporary crafts shop and gallery, complete with ceramics, stained glass, painting and fabric-working workshops on site. Travelling art displays are a frequent attraction and celebrations, such as the annual Beanie Festival, are also held there.
The front window to the arts portion of the centre is a massive, locally-made, stained glass work of art.
Artists whose work has regularly been exhibited at the Araluen Centre include Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri. [1]
Alice Springs is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd, wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd. Now colloquially known as The Alice or simply Alice, the town is situated roughly in Australia's geographic centre. It is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin.
Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock carving, watercolour painting, sculpting, ceremonial clothing and sand painting; art by Indigenous Australians that pre-dates European colonisation by thousands of years, up to the present day.
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is the main museum in the Northern Territory. The museum is located in the inner Darwin suburb of Fannie Bay. The MAGNT is governed by the Board of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and is supported by the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory Foundation. Each year the MAGNT presents both internally developed exhibitions and travelling exhibitions from around Australia. It is also the home of the annual Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Australia's longest running Indigenous art prize.
The Strehlow Research Centre is a museum and cultural centre located in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. The Research Centre is responsible for the care of the Strehlow Collection of Indigenous central Australian ethnographic objects and archival materials. It is managed by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri was a Pintupi-Luritja-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region, and sister of artist Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri. Daisy Jugadai lived and painted at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory. There she played a significant role in the establishment of Ikuntji Women's Centre, where many artists of the region have worked.
Susie Bootja Bootja Napaltjarri was an Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Born south-west of Balgo, Western Australia, in the 1950s Susie Bootja Bootja married artist Mick Gill Tjakamarra, with whom she had a son, Matthew Gill Tjupurrula.
Tjunkiya Napaltjarri was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She is the sister of artist Wintjiya Napaltjarri.
Peggy Rockman Napaljarri is a Warlpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Born on what is now Tanami Downs pastoral station in the Northern Territory, she learned English when working as a child with a white mining family; Peggy Rockman and her family were subsequently relocated by government authorities to Lajamanu, a new community west of Tennant Creek. Peggy Rockman is one of the traditional owners of Tanami Downs.
Lucy Napaljarri Kennedy is a Walpiri and Anmatyerre-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. One of the first Indigenous women artists to paint in acrylics, her work has been exhibited at major galleries around Australia, and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1994 for services to the Yuendumu community.
Sheila Brown Napaljarri was a Warlpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. A contributor to major collaborative paintings by Indigenous communities, her works are also held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the South Australian Museum.
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians, that is, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. It is generally regarded as beginning in 1971 with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, involving Aboriginal artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and facilitated by white Australian teacher and art worker Geoffrey Bardon. The movement spawned widespread interest across rural and remote Aboriginal Australia in creating art, while contemporary Indigenous art of a different nature also emerged in urban centres; together they have become central to Australian art. Indigenous art centres have fostered the emergence of the contemporary art movement, and as of 2010 were estimated to represent over 5000 artists, mostly in Australia's north and west.
Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa was a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist of Anmatyerre, Warlpiri and Arrernte heritage. One of the earliest and most significant artists at Papunya in Australia's Northern Territory in the early 1970s, he was a founding member and inaugural chairman of the Papunya Tula artists company, and pivotal to the establishment of modern Indigenous Australian painting.
Rene Kulitja, also known as Wanuny Kulitja, is an Aboriginal Australian artist. She works with a range of media, including paint, glass and ceramics. Her most famous design is probably Yananyi Dreaming, which covers a Qantas Boeing 737.
Gulgardi is a 1971 painting by Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa, an Indigenous Australian artist from Papunya in Australia's Northern Territory. It is notable for being the first work by an Indigenous Australian artist to win a contemporary art award, and the first public recognition of a Papunya painting.
Jeanna Petyarre, also known as Jeannie Petyarre, is a member of a family of artists that includes Kathleen Petyarre, Ada Bird Petyarre and Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Jeanna Petyarre is from the Utopia district of Central Australia. Her works feature in a number of collections including the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and the Holmes à Court Collection in Perth, as well as many private collections.
Dolly Nampijinpa Daniels (1936–2004) was an Australian Aboriginal ritual leader, Warlipiri speaker, renowned artist, and land -rights advocate for the Warlipiri people of the Northern Territory.
Marina Strocchi is an internationally-exhibited Australian painter and printmaker whose work is held in many national collections. Strocchi is based in Alice Springs and has worked extensively with Aboriginal artists in Central Australia.
Yhonnie Scarce is an Australian glass artist whose work is held in major Australian galleries. She is a descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, and her art is informed by the effects of colonisation on Indigenous Australia, in particular Aboriginal South Australians. She has been active as an artist since completing her first degree in 2003, and teaches at the Centre of Visual Art in the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.
Pantjiti Mary McLean is a Ngaatjajarra Aboriginal Australian artist.
Desert Mob is Central Australia's largest First Nations art and cultural event and exhibition held in Mparntwe annually. It has run for 30 years as of 2021.
Coordinates: 23°42′06″S133°51′45″E / 23.701550°S 133.862571°E