Janet Dreamer Jaru, 1/2/1959-2021

 The late Kimberley Jaru painter Janet Dreamer (1959-2021) known affectionately only as "Dreamer" was a unique artist. 

Growing up at her birthplace of Old Flora Valley Station east of Halls Creek in the 1960s, Dreamer and her five siblings hunted, fished and travelled with their elders, learning of traditional life. Later, she moved to Kirkimbie Station as a kitchen worker and had two children, then to Billiluna Station and eventually to Halls Creek. 

Although Dreamer started painting at the age of 16 under her father's tutelage, it was only much later, after she joined Yarliyil Art Centre at Halls Creek in 2013, that she started painting in earnest and with her own vision. And what a vision it was. 

Her vibrantly coloured canvases with their free imagery and sizzling hues bring to life an extraordinary range of flora, wildlife and water life of Old Flora Valley Station, the lush oasis of nearby Palm Springs and that which she observed on the many journeys she called 'walkabout' over vast tracks of Jaru country from Derby to Halls Creek. 

"My country", she said, "stays in my dreams. I dream about my home, and I don't forget about my country." 

 At Yarliyil Art Centre, Dreamer was an artistic powerhouse as she painted ceaselessly for hours on end. Art centre staff had never experienced anything like either her artistic style - a seamless blend of naive figuration and abstraction - or her prodigious output. 

First, she would set down her main subject (typically fauna, birds, flora or water life), then semi obscure them with sweeps of luminous colours and patterns. The results are joyous works of boundless, raw energy characterised by brilliant colouration and quirky style. Yet, in their depictions of often now rare wildlife, and occasionally, ceremonial iconography, her work is also of profound cultural significance. 

A number of paintings were eagerly bought by art centre visitors, and recognising their quality and individuality, Yarliyil Art Centre started putting a selection aside for gallery exhibitions. 

Dreamer was a finalist in Perth's prestigious John Stringer Prize 2022 (in a posthumous tribute) and three works were acquired by the Art Gallery of Western Australia. 

However, in 2020, the advent of Covid derailed the planned exhibitions, save for an artist spotlight feature show at Short Street gallery in 2021. 

Sadly, Mrs Dreamer's health also declined, and she passed away in hospital in Darwin in 2021, leaving a substantial body of works. 

In 2024, Yarliyil Art Centre appointed Victoria's Everywhen Art as their representative gallery to manage Janet Dreamer's exhibition quality works with a targeted programme of presenting her work in high level exhibition venues Australia-wide and possibly internationally - in so doing according to this remarkable artist the recognition she and her work so richly deserves. 

The three main themes of Dreamer's works: 

1. Her mother's country of Old Flora Valley Station and Wungu. She said that her mother was born 'in a little creek near the homestead'. "My mum was also raised out there, she walked that country with the old people from there, they also taught her the language, culture and traditional ways of living as they would often have to hunt for their food. I paint the two main ranges and the three rivers - Black Elvire, Fox and Johnston and the creek where her mother was born".
   
   
2. Palm Springs. A lush waterhole and natural oasis on Old Flora Station in which she depicts a myriad of fish, turtles and other water life, as well as the surrounding lush vegetation.
   
   
3. Walkabout. An ever-unfolding array of flora and fauna that she observed on her many travels through her extensive lands between Derby and Halls Creek. These include kangaroos looking for bush potatoes and onions amongst boab trees; colourful grasses and their colours that change with the sunset light; the scenery and the water life of Fox, Elvire and Johnston rivers where turtles swim and birds 'talk' about about mungari (food).
   

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024 Walkabout - a Janet Dreamer Exhibition, Short Street Gallery, Broome

2025 The Paradisical World of Janet Dreamer, Everywhen Art, Mornington Peninsula

2025 My Country It Stays in My Dreams, Artitja Fine Art Gallery, Fremantle, in partnership with Everywhen Art 

COLLECTIONS 

Art Gallery of Western Australia