Spinifex artists bring Aboriginal culture and country to canvas at ReDot Fine Art Gallery
by Elizabeth Reidy
ReDot Fine Art Gallery recently hosted the Rawa Tjunguku: working together a long-time exhibition, continuing the powerful message of the Spinifex people asserting the importance of connection to the environment, culture, community and enduring ancestral history. The gallery, which specialises in Indigenous Australian art, draws directly from a collection of the longest-standing Aboriginal Arts Centres in Australia, one of which is Spinifex Arts Projects.
The Spinifex Arts Projects was founded in 1997 to document and record traditional ownership of the Spinifex Native Title Claim through cultural practice.
Left: Pila Nguru, 18-400, 2018, acrylic on linen, by various Spinifex artists. Right: Kulyuru, 21-185, 2021, acrylic on linen, by Lennard Walker. Presented by ReDot Fine Art Gallery and Spinifex Arts Project. Top: Nyuman, 15-155, 2015, acrylic on linen, by Lawrence Pennington; Tuwan, 14073, 2014, acrylic on linen, by Lawrence Pennington; Tuwan, 24-335, 2024, acrylic on linen, by Ian Rictor.
The exhibition showcases the rich colours and dot painting methodology that have become synonymous with the Country of the Nullarbor Plain and Western Desert. The large-scale collaborative landscape paintings through which the community came to prominence feature a rich texture of colours and dots mapping the Pila Nguru and Lingka Munu Mituna area. The circles and lines depict waterholes and trail maps that define the communities’ long-standing connection to Country.
Individual highlights include the unique works of Timo Hogan, whose pieces pay tribute to Lake Baker, a place of cultural significance to his father. “My father took me to Lake Baker, all around, rockhole and all. I know all these places, but I can’t show them. Millmillpa (dangerously sacred)”. Timo’s Lake Baker painting won the prestigious 2021 Telstra Art Award, one of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, and he continues to produce large-scale paintings for the area to which he is connected through his spiritual ancestry.
Left: Lake Baker, 23-350, 2023, acrylic on linen. Right: Lake Baker, 24-276, 2024, acrylic on linen. Artworks by Timo Hogan.
Simon Hogans’ exquisitely detailed and colourful paintings are another standout in the exhibition. Simon was a prominent figure in the group of traditional owners from Spinifex who lobbied the Western Australian government for native title. He was a leader in the Western desert painting movement translating the people’s traditional beliefs and culture into acrylic painting and large-scale public artwork. His colourful and detailed works map the land and the people of Spinifex with the acuteness of a true master of his culture.
Anyone interested in learning more about Aboriginal painting and culture and Western Desert painting movement should look no further than at the work of the artists of the Spinifex community, who are a powerful force of cultural practice.
Go further with the ReDot Fine Art Gallery in this exclusive interview with founder Giorgio Pilla.
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