Tangentyere Artists

Tangentyere Artists is an Aboriginal Art Enterprise, owned and directed by Tangentyere Council.  Located in Alice Springs at the council’s headquarters, the Tangentyere Aboriginal Community Art Centre specialises in paintings and local seed jewellery produced by over 400 residents from the Alice Springs town camps.  The artists are among the most disadvantaged people in Australia, living in the most challenging physical and social conditions.  The artistic support and marketing services offered by this Aboriginal Community Art Centre provide significant social, economic and cultural benefits, particularly to the un-represented, under-employed and senior town camp artists, keen to pass on traditional culture through their art practice.    

        
    Left: Town Camp Mural    Right: Namatjira Town Camp      

Tangentyere pronounced ‘Tungen-jerra’, meaning working together, is the major service delivery agency for 18 housing associations known as town camp communities in Alice Springs. The camps are home to around 1850 Indigenous people from the local area and their many visitors from remote communities across Central Australia.  The council is Aboriginal owned and controlled and governed by an executive of elected town camp residents.

The inception of Tangentyere Artists in 2005, meant that for the first time, the town camp residents were provided with access to the professional art support services and representation already made available to artists in remote communities across Central Australia. 

Since a single artist may support up to 20 or 30 indigenous people, the economic importance of this cannot be overstated.

  
Left: Artist Eileen Ungwanaka      Right: Artist Margaret Boko

Naive Art

Many of the paintings from Tangentyere Artists Community fall under the category of Naive Art,  a world wide genre of simple narrative expression defined below by ArtHistoryGuide.com.

Naive Art, or Outsider Art, refers to works by artists in sophisticated societies who reject or lack professional training.  Naive artists create art with the same passion and intentions as trained artists, but work without formal knowledge of methods and training.  Naive artwork is characterized by the use of bright strong colors, detailed images, and an absence of perspective (creating the fantastical illusion of forms and figures floating in space). Naive art represents memories, dreams, fantasies and scenes from every day life with an emphasis on color and shapes. Naive is often associated with Folk Art, but is very different because of the simple fact that Naive art is less concerned with social structures, political correctness, and traditions.  Naive art emerged in the last fifty years as one of contemporary art’s most important styles because it has endured the ever changing styles around it, and remains generally the same. It is interesting to note that despite the large number of primitive or naive painters around the world, they all possess a distinct unity of style. 

In the case of Tangentyere Artists, those of Mwerre Anthurre, and an increasing number of other artists from Aboriginal Art Communites, the works represent an entirely different kind of expression from the desert art normally featured in Kate Owen Gallery's collection.  Where the majority of our art is a contemporary expression of ancient stories and important dreamings, these Naive painters are, as the definition above states, more concerned with the here and now, and express the artist's experience, dreams, hopes, values and memories in a colourful and beautifully simple way.  Subjects such as Elizabeth Nampitjinpa's 'Car and House Out Bush' and Louise Daniel's delightful 'Meeting with the Land Council' are a fascinating narrative of the indigenous person's experience.  Indeed, they are highly collectible snapshots of an important time of change, resistance and transition for all Australians.

    
Left:  Artist Sally Mulda       Right: Artist  Jane Young

  
Left: Artist Doris Thomas      Right: Artist Eileen Ungwanaka

                                       
                                      Artist Grace Robinya

What better way to complete this introduction to Tangentyere Artists Community, than with the beautiful smiling face of Artist Grace Robinya (above).

To see artworks from this community visit the Tangentyere Artists Exhibition at our Rozelle Gallery from 12 - 27 March, 2011 or buy on line after you sneak a peek here.  More works will be added during the week before the 12th March, so stay tuned.....