"It’s good to learn from old people. They keep saying when you paint you can remember that Country, just like to take a photo, but there’s the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and everything. Good to put it in painting, your Country, so kids can know and understand. When the old people die, young people can read the stories from the paintings. They can learn from the paintings and maybe they want to start painting too."
In Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe (From my women), Shirley Purdie pays homage to the women in her family, representing herself through collective knowledge, culture and values. Acquired by the Portrait Gallery in September 2019, this non-representational self portrait is informed by Aboriginal ways of seeing and understanding the world. Each panel contains a story, producing a portrait that is a complex kaleidoscope of personal history, identity and connection to country.
Purdie has lived on Gija Country in Western Australia’s East Kimberley all her life. Her cultural knowledge and artistic skill complement each other to produce a practice that holds great strength. She is a prominent leader in Warmun Community and an incisive cross-cultural communicator. Inspired by more senior Warmun artists, including her late mother, the great Madigan Thomas, as well as Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie, Purdie began to paint her Country in the early 1990s. Shirley’s uncle, artist Jack Britten, said to her, ‘Why don’t you try yourself for painting, you might be all right’. Working at the Warmun Art Centre, established in 1998, Purdie is dedicated to perpetuating Gija stories and language for young people.
The first row of paintings depict stories relating to kinship, introducing significant women relatives.
The second row of paintings recall stories relating to specific sites, experiences and activities.
The third row of paintings come from Ngarranggarni (Dreaming).
The fourth row of paintings interweave Ngarranggarni, memories, relationships and Country.
27 May 2020
Emily Casey takes in Shirley Purdie’s remarkable self-portrait, Ngalim-Ngalimbooroo Ngagenybe.
Revealing the backstories behind the NPG collection, Before hand features interviews with artists and sitters as well as working drawings, scrapbooks, sketches and footage taken in artists’ studios and out on location.
Offering portraiture in all its flavours: painting, photography, drawing, textiles, printmaking and sculpture, this exhibition is a feast for minds and eyes.
