Today we’re thrilled and honoured to be launching our second TDF Collect event of the year – Different Sorta Colour.

This exhibition showcases the work of five Indigenous artists – Doreen Chapman, Gloria, Maggie Green, Mulyatingki Marney, and Nyangulya Katie Nalgood – all of whom produce their work at Spinifex Hill Studio.

You might remember we hosted a solo show of Maggie Green’s art earlier in the year – our first exhibition with Spinifex Hill Studio. This studio facilitates the art making of around 40 artists, and functions more broadly as a creative hub for the Pilbara region, accessed by 100 artists from up to eight Aboriginal language groups each year. It stands on Kariyarra Country in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. 

This particular exhibition encompasses a diverse range of subject matter and painting styles, with one thing in common – colour! In their own distinct way, each artist creates work that articulates their unique relationship to family, land, and culture.

Thanks must go to the incredible team at Spinifex Hill Studio, without who this exhibition would not be possible. This online show will go a long way to supporting Spinifex, at a time when other vital income-generating art fairs have been cancelled and postponed. We hope you love these glorious, vibrant works as much as we do!

Gloria

Born in the remote community of Jigalong in 1975, acrylic artist Gloria is a Martu woman  working within a powerful matriarchal tradition that emerged from the Western Desert in the early 2000s. Her loose brushwork and pastel palettes have attracted critical acclaim for their highly affecting presence.

Gloria only learned to paint in late 2015, but has since exhibited her work across Western  Australia and Singapore, and won several awards. 

To engage with a Gloria’s canvas is to be swept into a vortex of colour and kinesis, offering many different ways of seeing and feeling. Her works are like weather – commanding and mercurial. 

Nyangulya Katie Nalgood

Kimberley-born artist Nyangulya Katie Nalgood grew up on a station north of the Fitzroy River. 

Rather than landscapes of Country, her practice frequently references types of birds: a visual taxonomy of the species whose songs formed the soundscape of her childhood, and now proclaim the beginning and ending of each day.

Nyangulya Katie looks to birds from across Western Australia, finding inspiration in their different colours, forms, and personalities.

Mulyatingki Marney

Mulyatingki Marney is a Martu woman born at Nyinyari near the Canning Stock Route. Her Country encompasses the Punmu, Kunawarritji and Karlamilyi River regions: regions of East Pilbara in Western Australia. 

Mulyangki’s work depicts semi-abstract landscapes in vibrant acrylic. Contours and textures are articulated throughout her pieces, which often draw the eye toward a single unblinking waterhole.

An established and extensively collected artist, Mulyatingki paints with both Spinifex Hill Artists and Martumili Artists in Newman. 

Doreen Chapman 

Doreen Chapman was born in Jigalong and has spent her life moving between Western Desert communities. She grew up surrounded by senior artists, and as a deaf person, her practice has become an essential means of expression. 

Skilled at producing both figurative and abstract works, Doreen’s work continues the Martu legacy of storytelling using a unique creative voice. She paints rapidly and prolifically in broad, textural brush-strokes, creating bold abstract compositions. 

Doreen’s works showcase unexpected colour combinations with assertively minimal composition.

Maggie Green 

TDF Collect proudly hosted Maggie Green’s first ever solo exhibition earlier in the year, and are honoured to bring you more of her stunning works as part of ‘Different Sorta Colour.’ 

Maggie is a Mangala woman based in Pilbara, a remote region in the north of Western Australia. Her artwork tells the stories of her childhood spent at Myroodah Station, a sheep and cattle station in the West Kimberley Region, where Maggie first learned her distinctive dot painting style from her mother and grandmother. 

Today, Maggie’s works are semi-abstract renderings of landscape that translate memories of her childhood into geometric compositions of glowing pastel colour.

Every one of Maggie’s works begins with her sketching the same thing: two lines drawn down the centre in chalk representing the road at Myroodah Station where she grew up. She then draws two squares on either side of the road – the school and the toilet block – before painting over them entirely in seemingly random shapes. Her practice is extraordinarily time-consuming, incorporating two painted layers of gridded dots. 

All works from ‘Different Sorta Colour’ are available to view and purchase now on the TDF Collect website until June 30th. For all sales and enquiries please contact art@thedesignfiles.net

‘Different Sorta Colour‘
A group exhibition by Spinifex Hill Studio artists Maggie Green, Mulyatingki Marney, Doreen Chapman, Nyangulya Katie Nalgood, and Gloria
June 1st – 30th
Online only at TDF Collect