• 9. Pwonga
  • 9. Pwonga
  • 9. Pwonga
  • 9. Pwonga

ALISON PURUNTATAMERI

9. Pwonga


Regular price   

“Dry Season is for getting ready for bush holiday. Ready to burn off. Clear up our camping spot. Ready for camping. We got a map there, tells me about wet season and dry season.” ~ Alison (JoJo) Puruntatmeri 

 

  • Ochre on Linen, stretched
  • 80cm x 120cm 
  • Cat No 23-136

This painting tells a story about Pwonga the spider woman who gave us the designs of the web lines. When Tiwi look for water they look for the spider webs which tell us there is water near.

Alison (JoJo) Puruntatmeri was born in Pirlangimpi on Melville Island.  She grew up in Pirlangimpi and went to the local school.  After she completed school she worked in child care.She has one daughter, Anette Orsto known locally as Sugar Plum who is a great favourite at the art centre studio where Alison paints with her mother Paulina (Jedda) Puruntatameri, her partner James Orsto and the other artists. It was Alison’s grandfather, Justin Puruntatameri (deceased) a senior law man who told Alison she should have a go at painting.

He knew all the old songs and remembered visits by the Maccassans to the Tiwi Islands when he was a boy.  Alison would listen to his stories of his paintings at the art centre and on country. He used to take the family hunting when she was little. He would also take them out bush bashing in his 2 door toyota ute called Black Nose. He used to teach them how to cook wallabies, mussels lots of foods all together under the ground wrapped in paperbark.

Alison started painting at Munupi Arts Centre in late 2011. Alison was a finalist in the Museum of Contemporary Arts 2014 Primavera Art Award. She is a finalist in the 2023 Ramsay Art Prize at Art Gallery of South Australia. 

 

Munupi Arts & Crafts Association is located along Melville Island's north-western coastline at Pirlangimpi (Garden Point) and is the most recently formed art centre on the Tiwi Islands. In 1990 the Yikikini Women’s Centre and Pirlangimpi Pottery were incorporated under the name Munupi Arts and Crafts Association giving local artists an opportunity to proudly celebrate Tiwi culture through both traditional and contemporary mediums.
 
For 25 years Munupi Arts has been a vital meeting place for the Tiwi people of the Pirlangimpi community for employment, cultural pride and well being.
Munupi Art is wholly indigenous owned and governed. 
Generated income supports the artist's families and therefore the whole Tiwi community. 

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