My Country Stays in My Dreams - JANET DREAMER
"My country stays in my dreams. I dream about my home, and I don't forget about my country."
The East Kimberley Jaru painter Janet Dreamer (1959-2021) was a unique image maker. Known affectionately as “Dreamer”, Janet Dreamer grew up in the 1960s at her birthplace of Old Flora Valley in the east Kimberley near Halls Creek. She and her five siblings hunted, fished and travelled with their elders, learning the traditional ways. 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 several decades later - after she joined Yarliyil Arts in 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 (Lugangarna) and the abundance of both plants and wildlife she observed on the many journeys she called 'walkabout' over vast tracks of her people's 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 Arts, Dreamer was an artistic dynamo 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 unique figuration
A number of works were snapped up by art centre visitors, and recognising their quality and individuality, Yarliyil Arts started putting a selection aside for gallery exhibitions. In 2020 however, the advent of Covid derailed most of the planned exhibitions. Sadly, Mrs Dreamer's health also declined, and she passed away in hospital in Darwin in 2021, leaving a substantial body of work. 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.
Long term art Kimberley art centre manager Kevin Kelly, while manager of Yarliyil Arts worked with Dreamer from 2017 to 2021. He described her vibrant, energetic work as “compelling and utterly original - unlike any other artist I'd ever seen". Noting also that in their depictions of now rare wildlife, and ceremonial iconography, many works are also of "profound cultural significance.
In 2024, Yarliyil Arts appointed the Mornington Peninsula-based Victorian gallery Everywhen Art to represent Mrs Dreamer's estate and to create a national exhibition programme of Mrs Dreamer's work in partnership with Yarliyil Arts. The aim, says Everywhen Art's co director Susan McCulloch is to " bring Mrs Dreamer's work to wide public and art world attention through high quality exhibitions in leading galleries Australia-wide; to provide income by exhibition sales to her immediate family via her estate and in so doing, to accord this remarkable artist the recognition she and her work so richly deserve".
The first of these exhibitions The Paradisical World of Janet Dreamer was held in February 2025 at Everywhen Art in Shoreham, Victoria, and this the second exhibition My Country Stays in My Dreams is presented by Artitja Fine Art Gallery at their exhibiting space, Earlywork, 330 South Terrace, South Fremantle.
Exhibition dates: August 25-September 7
Venue: EARLYWORK, 330 South Tce, South Fremantle
Official opening: Friday 29 August 2025 | 6-8pm to be opened by Kevin Kelly, long term Kimberley art centre manager.
Exhibition talk: Kevin Kelly and Susan McCulloch OAM in conversation with Anna Kanaris. Saturday 30 August 2025 | 2-3pm.
RSVP to talk essential: janetdreamer.eventbrite.com.au or call 0418 900 954
View exhibition online: www.artitja.com.au
Enquiries to Anna Kanaris | 0418 900 954 info@artitja.com.au
