Gallery Wall

In Preparation for the Blackstone Festival and visiting Gallery buyers, paintings have been stretched and hung to Maximum effect!... The Gallery wall has been received with great adoration from our Artists, instilling a great sense of achievement. There is nothing more satisfying then spending a whole week on a work and then standing back, having a look, and then, saying "finished!"

The Blackstone Reading Room

Edith Lyons and Jean Lane, having an in-depth read of the new 'Art Collector Guide to Aboriginal Art Centres' Magazine. Both featured in the magazine with stunning artworks.

Madeleine's hanging system

The proud creator of the new Blackstone Art Centre Hanging System! (B.A.C.H.S)

4 right angle brackets and a bunch of coat hangers - what a masterful achievement!

Rosie Lane

Rosie Lane, a young vibrant painter with a brighter future ahead. Thick detailed, purposefully dotted paint. Marks dropped from a touch of a stick, a heavily textured surface, a feast for the eyes and purposefully suited to Rosie's vibrant personality, not to mention her colourful dress sense. Always painting with a smile, a production of happiness translated directly to the viewer, with artworks to lighten up any dull mood. Rosie is as her name is and her artworks are as cheerful and uplifting as a desert storm is to the parched land - bringing life to everything she touches.

Nora Davidson - Featured Artist

Nora was born near the Community of Jameson where her family holds the story for Illurpa. Nora now lives at Blackstone with her family and enjoys the traditional life offered here and is a regular visitor to the Blackstone Art Centre. Her paintings have come a long way in the past couple of months showing a contemporary innovating style with lush, vibrant dotting. When artists such as Nora paint every day with works improving with every canvas offered to her, something magical happens. A Break-through work!

At the Blackstone Art Centre, we talk about the world money crisis and its effects on painting sales. Then we discuss what is important about painting, and how the stories and knowledge of the country painted is vital to the future success of any artist. We talk about painting the POWER back into painting and... every now and then a painter steps up and paints somthing magical.

The work shown here depicts, sand dunes, bush foods and spinifex grasses and rock holes. Nora tells me that the rock holes shown are very important to her family and that she has depicted the two middle rock holes with blue showing that they are 'living water' and that the water flows from them more than the others which will dry up when there is no rain. She explains that the green has been painted to depict more growth near where the water flows and with that growth, there is an abundance of bush foods.

Nora has taken the ideas of her country and the stories she was told as a young girl and depicted them elegantly with a depth of knowledge, subtle yet sacred and vital to her ancestors way of life. Nora is proud of this work and has understood the painting medium to be used to powerfully covey her bush past. The colours are rich and textural conveying her love of country, and purposefully explored to allow others a glimpse of her heritage and willingly shares her living knowledge with others. We are lucky to have such a wonderfully gifted artist painting for Papulankutja Artists, playing her role to keep our culture and Art Centre STRONG!

Painting the Power back into Painting

Image painted by Ruby Reid

Hello Friends of Blackstone!

We have reached a turning point at Papulankutja Artists. We have had strong cultural leaders pass away, some have moved into respite and others have simply moved to another community. With this great loss over time, the art works of Blackstone Community have been in a fragile state. The strength of our artworks relies on the strong cultural knowledge which accompanies them and with the loss of strong leaders, the knowledge grows weak and the power felt and seen in an art work is lost. The previous Manager of Papulankutja Artists, Dianna Isgar has achieved wonderful results in setting up a platform for a new generation of artists to step up. With her vision and efforts the new Art Centre Building was built, and now a fully realized creation, this building is a haven for men and women of all ages to participate in cultural knowledge and art. Accompanying the new building is the enthusiasm of the artist, who have slowly and surely stepped up from strength to strength, painting the power back into the painting.

We talk about this power, how the dotting of the spinifex in country mirrors the dotting of the brush on canvas. The way colours in country work well together and how the same colour patterns can be conveyed with paint. We talk about the important symbols in the story and how to make these symbols stand out, using the right colours and textures of paint to highlight those powerful symbols and markings. An important aspect of Blackstone art is the concept of track making, tracks of ancestral beings and tracks of animals important to the storyteller. These tracks dance along the painting as in the ceremony accompanying the story, or the tracks may have a serious presence, marked out with broad sweeping brush strokes. Tracks are fine and detailed or they are thick and lush with dotted texture.

On closer review of the Blackstone paintings, artists have never really lost the power portrayed by those strong leaders of the past, they have just been waiting for the right platform and the right encouragement to move forwards. People of Blackstone community have an incredible wealth of knowledge, but as a genuinely humble people, they have been waiting to step up as strong painters, allowing those who have gone before them to lead the way.

And now the time has come.

We have young artists showing natural talent for colour and composition and the more mature men and women are strengthening their works on a daily basis. Artists in Blackstone work hard at painting and work well, and some have shown that the power in painting never left us. Papulankutja Artists are genuine story tellers with a natural ability to paint and share their culture through vibrant, strong, powerful works and we hope to meet and share these powerful works with any friends that show a genuine interest in our Blackstone Community and our Art Centre.