email: artplace@iinet.net.au

 

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Shirley Purdie

 


Shirley Purdie is a senior Warmun artist. She is a strong Law and Culture woman and an important ceremonial singer and dancer.  In the early 1990s Shirley began to paint her country, inspired by older Warmun artists including her mother, Madigan Thomas, as well as Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie. Shirley's uncle, artist Jack Britten said to her "why don't you try yourself for painting, you might be alright".  Shirley views painting as an important cultural educational tool.  She says: "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 Ngarrangkarni (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". Shirley is well known for her use of richly textured natural earth pigments on canvas; ochres which are collected from, and imbue her paintings with, the spirit of her country. Shirley was born on Gilbun (Mabel Downs Station). As a young woman Shirley worked on Mabel Downs and Texas Downs Stations and returned to Warmun to work in the school.

 

Selected Group Exhibitions:

1994   Artists of the East Kimberley Exhibition, Canberra Grammar School

1994   Maintaining Family Tradition, International Year of the Family Conference, Adelaide Festival Centre, S.A.

1994   National Aboriginal Art Award, Australian Heritage Commission

1995   Savode Gallery, Brisbane, Qld.

1998   Span Gallery, Melbourne, Vic.

1999   Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, Vic.

1999   Chamber of Commerce, Wuerzburg, Germany.

1999   Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin, NT

1999   East Kimberley Art Awards, Kununurra, WA

1999   Hale School Annual Art Exhibition, Perth, WA

1999   Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, Perth, WA

1999   Hogarth Galleries, Paddington, Sydney, NSW

2000   Kunst Der Aborigines, Galerie Baehr, Germany

2000   Anthropological Museum, Freiburg, Germany

2000   Galerie Australis, Adelaide, SA.

2000   Ben Grady Gallery, Canberra, ACT

2000   Bett Gallery Hobart, Tas

2000   Commonwealth Institute, London, UK

2000   'The Art of Place', National Indigenous Heritage Art Award, Canberra, ACT

2000   "State of My Country", Hogarth Galleries, Paddington, Sydney, NSW

2000    Michael Carr Gallery, Sydney, NSW

2000    Melbourne Art Fair (Artbank & Bett Gallery Hobart)

2000    Hogarth Galleries, Paddington, NSW

2001   'Past Modern', Short Street Gallery, Australia Square, Sydney, NSW

2001   "Four Warmun Ngarliwarrin (Women)", Artplace, Perth, WA

Awards:

Special Commendation    1999 East Kimberley Art Awards

Collections incl:

Artbank

Edith Cowan University Art Collection, Perth, WA.

Northern Territory University Collection.

Kerry Stokes Collection

Private Collections

 

Exhibitions