Barbara Mbitjana Moore

Last updated

Barbara Mbitjana Moore (born 1964) is an Anmatyerre woman who grew up in Ti-Tree in the Northern Territory, moving later to Amata in South Australia's Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. In April 2003, Moore began painting at Amata's Tjala Arts, and, since then, has received widespread recognition. Moore won a National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2012 and has been a finalist in many other years. Moore has also been a finalist for the Wynne Prize. [1] [2]

Contents

Biography

Moore was born in Ti-Tree in the Northern Territory. [2] Raised in Amoonguna, she began attending Yirara College, a boarding school in Alice Springs, at the age of 13. In the middle of high school she moved north, back to her father's home country of Ti-Tree. There, she took a job as an Aboriginal Education Worker in a preschool. [3] Moore would later marry, moving to Amata to live with her husband. [3] In Amata, Moore began a new job as a healthcare worker. [4] Serving first as a cleaner at the Amata Clinic, Moore later became a nurse's aid after completing three levels of training. [4] She is now an Aboriginal Senior Health Worker for Nganampa Health, working at the Amata Clinic full-time in addition to her career as an artist. [2] Moore is known to paint during much of available free time, including while on lunch break from work at the Clinic. [5]

Moore cites family as an important motivator in her work and career. She describes that “for us, the role of an artist is a respected position. It’s one that our children and grandchildren look up to and one they aspire to be. I’m making a path for my children.” [4] Moore is the mother of two children, a son and a daughter who are both married and living in Amata. [5] She is also the grandmother to three grandchildren; Teresita, Hannah, and Darcy. [5]

Career

Moore began painting at Tjala Arts (formerly Minymaku Arts) in 2003, where she continues to paint on a daily basis. [6] The Tjala Arts Center community has had a profound effect on Moore's career, and she cites the vibrant social and communal atmosphere as foundational to her practice. [4] "It’s really good for us to be here," she notes, "working in the art center together. Doing all of this good work, sharing stories, laughing and talking.” [4]

Moore paints large scale works to depict her country and its landscape. [6] She mainly uses acrylic paints on linen, and screen printing, [7] and is known for her vibrant and expressive use of colours and designs, [8] particularly bright orange, pink, yellow, and green. [3] For Moore, these colors are reflective of the richness of her natural environment, used to represent the vibrant colors found in flowers and trees of her country. [4] Moore's work is also interested in the materiality of paint, using thick and expressive brushstrokes to "make the painting sing." [4]

Moore titles all of her paintings "Ngayuku Ngura (My Country)". [3] In the Pitjantjatjara language, the word Ngura describes both the physical geography of land and country, and the place to which someone belongs. It defines where an individual comes from, their family connections and language. [2] Paintings of Ngura often express the artist's personal stories and memories of Country. [3] Elements within the landscape such as tracks, landmarks, rock holes, underground springs, rock formations and sacred sites are recorded from memory, and often depicted from an aerial perspective. [2] [3]

In 2018, Moore, along with other artists from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, opened a gallery in Darlinghurst, Sydney, with the intention of overcoming unethical practices by art dealers towards Indigenous artists. [9]

Significant exhibitions

Awards and nominations

Residency

In November 2019, Moore and the artist Sharon Adamson, accompanied by Annie McLoughlin, manager of Tjala Arts, completed a two-week residency at the Kluge-Ruhe museum. [11] The two artists painted a mural, titled "Ngayulu Nguraku Ninti", across two walls in the museum. The mural conveys the connections Moore and Adamson have to their homeland, and features elements typical of Moore's works including the use of thickly applied paint, bright red and radiating circles. [3] The exhibition and residency were sponsored by the Australia Council for the Arts. [11]

Collections

Moore has collections in the Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank, [8] Corrigan Collection, the National Gallery of Australia and in the W&V McGeough Collection. [7]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

Kathleen Petyarre was an Australian Aboriginal artist. Her art refers directly to her country and her Dreamings. Petyarre's paintings have occasionally been compared to the works of American Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and even to those of J. M. W. Turner. She has won several awards and is considered one of the "most collectable artists in Australia". Her works are in great demand at auctions. Petyarre died on 24 November 2018, in Alice Springs, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara</span> Local government area in South Australia

Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, also known as APY, APY Lands or the Lands, is a large, sparsely-populated local government area (LGA) for Aboriginal people, located in the remote north west of South Australia. Some of the Aṉangu (people) of the Western Desert cultural bloc, in particular Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra peoples, inhabit the Lands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amata, South Australia</span> Town in South Australia

Amata is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia, comprising one of the six main communities on "The Lands".

Mimili is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia, comprising one of the six main communities on "The Lands". At the 2016 Australian census, Mimili had a population of 243.

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.

Hector Tjupuru Burton was an Australian Aboriginal artist. He is a leading artist from Amaṯa, in north-western South Australia. His work has been shown in exhibitions since 2003, in several cities in Australia and other countries. His first solo exhibition was held in 2004 in Melbourne. Examples of his paintings are held in the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Flinders University.

Tjungkara Ken is a Pitjantjatjara artist from Amata, South Australia, in the APY lands. She began painting in 1997, when Minymaku Arts was opened by the women of Amaṯa. She started painting professionally in 2008. By that time, the artists' co-operative had been renamed Tjala Arts.

Tiger Palpatja was an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands.

Sandy Brumby is an Aboriginal Australian artist whose work rapidly became popular following the start of his career late in life.

Maringka Tunkin is a Pitjantjatjara artist from Central Australia.

Naomi Hobson is an Aboriginal Australian artist of southern Kaantju and Umpila heritage from Lockhart River, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. She works in many media, including painting, photography and ceramics. She started exhibiting in 2013.

Yaritji Young is a Pitjantjatjara woman from Pukatja, a community within the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands and she now lives at Rocket Bore; a homeland north of Amata. Young is a significant Australian Aboriginal artist and senior law women who is to committed to fostering law and culture and this forms a core part of her artistic practice. Most of Young's paintings are drawn from the Tjala Dreaming.

Tjala Arts, formerly known as Minymaku Arts, is an Aboriginal Australian-owned and -managed arts centre located in the remote community of Amata in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in the remote north-west of South Australia.

Lucy Malirrimurruwuy Armstrong Wanapuyngu is an Aboriginal Australian master fibre artist. She is an elder of the Gapuwiyak community, and is heavily involved in the transmission of knowledge dealing with fibre works. She has worked with anthropologist Louise Hamby, since 1995, and many of her works have been spotlighted at different art festivals, collections, galleries, and museums.

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani is an Aboriginal Australian artist from Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara in South Australia. Her paintings have won several awards, including the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award and the 2017 Wynne Prize for landscape art.

Sylvia Kanytjupai Ken is an Aboriginal Australian Artist. Her painting Seven Sisters won the 2019 Wynne Prize awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Sisters</span> Indigenous Australian art collective

The Ken Sisters also known as the Ken Family Collaborative or Ken Sisters Collaborative are a collective of award-winning Pitjantjatjara artists from the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of northern South Australia.

Nyurpaya Kaika Burton OAM is an artist and educator from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of Central Australia.

Dhambit Mununggurr is an Yolngu artist known for unique ultramarine blue bark paintings inspired by natural landscapes and Yolngu stories and legends. Her father Mutitjpuy Mununggurr and mother Gulumbu Yunupingu were both celebrated Aboriginal artists, each having won first prizes at the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torress Strait Islander Awards (NATSIAA). After a vehicular accident in 2005, Mununggurr was severely injured, but returned to painting in 2010.

Betty Muffler is an Aboriginal Australian artist and ngangkari (healer). She is a senior artist at Iwantja Arts, in Indulkana in Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, South Australia, known for a series of works on large linen canvases called Ngangkari Ngura .

References

  1. ↑ "Barbara Mbitjana Moore". Alcaston Gallery (in Polish). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Barbara Moore". NGANAMPA KILILPIL: OUR STARS. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Two Aboriginal Artists Pay Tribute to Their Homeland". www.mutualart.com. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "The Country I Know: Barbara Moore & Sharon Adamson". Kluge-Ruhe. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 Moore, Barbara (2015). Nganampa kampatjangka unngu = beneath the canvas : the lives and stories of the Tjala artists. Wakefield Press. ISBN   978-1-74305-349-2. OCLC   896890018.
  6. 1 2 "Barbara Moore". Viscopy. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 "John Fries Award 2016 Finalist – Barbara Moore". John Fries Award. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  8. 1 2 "ARTBANK : Barbara Moore – Untitled" . Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  9. ↑ Schubert, Steven (24 March 2018). "Remote Indigenous artists open up own gallery to stop 'dodgy' art dealers". ABC News. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 "Barbara Mbitjana Moore". Alcaston Gallery. Archived from the original on 2 March 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 "The Country I Know: Barbara Moore & Sharon Adamson". Kluge-Ruhe. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  12. ↑ "Telstra NATSIAA Winners". MAGNT. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  13. ↑ "Archibald Prize Wynne 2017 finalist: Ngayuku ngura – kapi tjukurla (rock holes near my country, Ti Tree – Anmatyerre country) by Barbara Mbitjana Moore". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  14. ↑ "Archibald Prize Wynne 2019 finalist: Ngayuku ngura (my country) by Barbara Mbitjana Moore". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.