Betty Pumani
40 1/8 x 59 7/8 in
This early work by multi award winning artist Betty Pumani depicts the country as though taking a drive through the APY Lands (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yangkunyjatjara Lands.) It depicts this country and its Tjukurpa and in detail style illustrates mountain ranges, rockholes and other topographical elements in the land. The different colours and designs represent variations in the landscape including rocks, caves and kapi tjukula (rock holes).
Betty Pumani started painting at the community of Mimili in the APY Lands in 2007. She is the daughter of the late Kunmanara Milatjari Pumani and the younger sister of the late Kunmanara Ngupulya Pumani, both renowned artists and two of the founders of Mimili Maku Arts. Pumani is a Ngangkari, healer, and teacher, having worked at the Mimili Anangu School alongside her sister, Kunmanara Ngupulya Pumani, for many years before commencing her painting career at Mimili Maku Arts in 2007. For two years running in 2015 and 2016 she was the winner of the Painting Award of the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award and in 2017 won the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. In 2019 she won the $50,000 Len Fox Painting Award at Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria.
In 2021 Pumani was selected to present a major commission at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, as part of The National 2021: New Australian Art. In the same year she was also announced as a finalist for the Hadley’s Art Prize in Hobart, Tasmania and for the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a collaborative piece she created with her daughter Marina Pumani Brown. Betty Kuntiwa Pumani's works feature in numerous important collections and major institutions including Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands; Artbank, Australia; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria; Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra; Kaplan and Levi Collection, Seattle, USA and private collections.
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