Newsletter for March 2010

The sale of paintings continues in support of the Western Desert Dialysis Program. It concludes on Sunday 7 March.

The Program helps Aboriginal patients to receive medical treatment for kidney disease in Alice Springs as well as to set up facilities in their home communities at Kintore and Yuendumu.

Please help this important Aboriginal-controlled initiative by buying one of the sale paintings. Net proceeds from the sale of each work will go to the Program.

All paintings over $1000 have been reduced by 10%!

I was saddened recently to hear the news that Ruby Hunter, the Aboriginal singer and songwriter, had died. In 2005 I was fortunate enough to attend "Ruby's Story", a musical collaboration between Ruby, Archie Roach and Paul Grabowsky. This beautiful and moving show tells of Ruby's life with Archie and brings home with great force the experiences of members of Australia's Stolen Generation. There is more about Ruby's achievements below.

Finally, we feature the work of a young artist Adrian King from Lockhart River on Cape York Peninsula.

Martin Wardrop
Director, Aboriginal Art Online Pty Ltd

We are selling more than 60 paintings to raise funds for the Western Desert Dialysis Program. This Program helps Aboriginal patients to receive medical treatment for kidney disease and to set up facilities in their home communities.

The Program started in 2000, when people from the Western Desert painted pictures and held an auction at the Art Gallery of NSW which raised over $1 million. The funds raised allowed a dialysis facility to be set up at Kintore in 2004.

Paintings in the sale range from larger, more expensive works to smaller pieces at modest prices (starting at $110).

Please help this very worthwhile cause by buying one of these fine art works!

Rene Nelson Irrunytju Mine 131x167 cm 2004	Rama Sampson Untitled 60x90 cm 2003	Yaritji Connelly Wati Ngintaka Tjukurrpa 80x124 cm 2005

Makinti Napanangka Lupulnga 61x91 cm 2008	Eunice Yunurupa Porter Two Wanambi 102x152 cm 2005	Ningura Napurulla Wirrulnga 91x91 cm 2009
Eubena Nampitjin Kinyu 60x90 cm 2009	Ivy Nixon Louisa Downs Country 65x56 cm 2009	Pansy Napangardi Untitled 99x122 cm 2003
Shorty Jangala Robertson Ngapa Jukurrpa 107x152 cm 2007	Alice Nampitjinpa Flowers in the tali 91x122 cm 2003	Nora Wompi Kunawarritji 60x90 cm 2009

February 18 was a sad day for Aboriginal and Australian culture with the news that Ruby Hunter had died at age 55.

Ruby was one of Australia's pioneering indigenous singer songwriters and the first Aboriginal woman in Australia to release a solo album in 1994.

A Ngarrindjeri woman, she was born at a billabong near the Murray River in South Australia. At birth Ruby was rubbed with the ashes of a campfire and held up to the moon in her grandfather's hands.

When only eight years old Ruby was forcibly removed from her family and grew up in foster homes and wandering on the streets of Adelaide.

She met her lifelong partner and musical soul mate Archie Roach when she was 16. Both were homeless teenagers at the time, using alcohol to ease their despair. They met at a Salvation Army centre which helped them to get their lives in better order. Both were members of the Stolen Generation.

Ruby started her musical career as a backing vocalist but was soon acknowledged as a performer in her own right, resulting in her first album Thoughts Within in 1994. A second album, Feeling Good, followed in 2000. This saw Ruby named Female Performer of the Year at the Deadly Sounds Music Awards.

In 2000 Ruby appeared with Archie in 'Land of the Little Kings' a feature length documentary about the experiences of indigenous Australians who were removed from their families as part of the Stolen Generations. In 2001 she made her acting debut as the tracker's wife in the Australian film, 'One Night the Moon'.

In 2004 Ruby and Archie collaborated with Paul Grabowsky and the Australian Art Orchestra to produce Ruby's Story. It is a rich and emotional musical experience which explores Ruby's search for identity, the discovery of hope through love, and Ruby and Archie's return to the river land in South Australia, to build a new life and a new home to mend the wounds of the past.

Grabowsky says Hunter is irreplaceable:

"She was an extraordinary artist, an extraordinary woman, a great leader and a great example to all of us who knew her. People like her are irreplaceable,"

"There is no sound like the voice of Ruby Hunter. It really is the sound of our first peoples, a sound that really evokes a sense of country."

 

Adrian King has an established reputation as a member of the Lockhart River Art Gang, having had four solo exhibitions since 2002. Recently he has taken a new direction with his style and use of colour. The focus of his new works is particularly on fishing for mullet and the coast where Adrian lives.