— Bundanon

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani

maḻatja-maḻatja those who come after

David Sequeira

The Shape of Music

28 June – 5 October 2025

Bundanon celebrated the work of two leading Australian artists through the exhibitions Betty Kuntiwa Pumani: maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after) and David Sequeira: The Shape of Music.

Offering different perspectives on contemporary practice, these exhibitions encompassed significant bodies of work made over many years, and new commissions created especially for Bundanon – reflecting Arthur Boyd’s vision for Bundanon as a ‘working arts centre’ and a place for creativity and connection, for all people.

maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after)

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani’s paintings reveal a shimmering landscape of red earth, bright blue waterholes and stippled white tobacco flowers. They represent Antara, her mother’s Country in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in north-western South Australia, and Tjukurpa storylines centred on maku, the witchetty grub.

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani: maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after) was the artist’s inaugural museum survey, encompassing key loans from public and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and early works drawn from the Mimili Maku Arts Cultural Collection which were shown publicly for the first time.

Matrilineal connections inform Pumani’s painting practice, with stories passed down through generations in the depiction of Antara. Reflecting this lineage, four works in the exhibition by the artist’s mother, Kunmanara (Milatjari) Pumani and sister, Kunmanara (Ngupulya) Pumani, highlighted the importance of family connection and intergenerational storytelling.

Curated by Bundanon CEO Rachel Kent in collaboration with the artist and Mimili Maku Arts, the exhibition introduced a major new commission ‘Antara’ (2025) created especially for Bundanon.

Maḻatja-maḻatja is a Pitjantjatjara term meaning ‘those who come after,’ carrying the understanding that all we do now already belongs to future generations – a thread connecting ancestral past to distant future through ongoing care for Country, culture, and story.

The Shape of Music

The Shape of Music brought together four bodies of work by David Sequeira in diverse media, including a major new commission for Bundanon. Sequeira’s creative practice reflects a longstanding interest in colour, geometry and sound. Ideas of presence, endlessness and contemplation inform his delicate paintings on music manuscript sheets – their overlain geometric forms creating chords of intense colour.

His new commission, ‘Form from the Formless (Under Bundanon Stars)’ (2025), comprised 30 music stands, each bearing manuscript sheets with hand-painted imagery of the glittering Bundanon night sky, alongside his signature geometric forms, and a soundscape.

Two earlier works highlighted Sequeira’s exploration of colour intensity and tonal variation in print-media and glass, working with the Australia Print Workshop, Melbourne and the Glass Studio Jam Factory. Sequeira’s unique-state prints considered the vitality of colour, advancing and receding before the viewer’s eye. His vast accumulations of transparent glass vessels present colour and form as constantly changing yet connected, suggestive of the slow unfolding of time.

Artists

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani was born near Perenti Bore on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in north-west South Australia. She grew up on her family’s homeland around Antara and Victory Well, nestled among the vast granite hills of the Everard Ranges. Betty comes from a strong female family line. Her mother, Milatjari Pumani, was one of the founding members of Mimili Maku Arts.

Betty is best known for her energetic paintings using a unique visual language that expresses the beauty, power and resilience of the land. Her signature reds evoke the rocky desert country of Antara, while also suggesting the unmistakable energy that runs through country. Betty has twice won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards’ General Painting Award (2015 and 2016) and has been awarded the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2017). In 2019 she won the Lex Fox Painting Award at Castlemaine Art Gallery.

In 2021 she was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney to create a major work at 10 x 3 metres which is now held in its permanent collection. In 2025 Betty presents her major survey at Bundanon.

David Sequeira

David Sequeira was born New Delhi, India, and lives and works in Melbourne.

Sequeira’s studio practice focusses on the use of colour and geometry in the creation of contemplative experiences. Much of his practice can be understood as an inquiry into the nature and resonance of abstraction. Curatorship — articulating the intersections between objects, time, place and space — is an important aspect of his art practice.

Major solo exhibitions of Sequeira’s work have been shown at University of NSW Galleries (History & Infinity, 2023), Bunjil Place Gallery (All the things I should have said that I never said, 2022), Nature Morte Gallery, New Delhi (All I want is here, 2007, Without you I’m nothing 2009), John Curtin Gallery, Perth; University of Queensland Art Museum (Eternal Rhythms, selected works 1996-2006, 2006/2007) and Art Gallery of NSW (David Sequeira Projects, 2001). His work has been featured in ARoS, Aarhus Art Museum Denmark (Sky Gazing, 2024), The National 4: New Australian Art NOW at the Art Gallery of NSW (2023), the TarraWarra Biennial (ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili, 2023), Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra (Colour Music, 2014) and Canberra Museum and Art Gallery (Pulse, 2014).

ACCESS

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after) and David Sequeira The Shape of Music is an accessible exhibition with several resources available below and at the Art Museum Reception. Visitors are advised that this season is a 90% visual exhibition, predominantly featuring painting, installation, video and soundscape.

SENSORY MAP

The sensory map for Betty Kuntiwa Pumani maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after) and David Sequeira The Shape of Music includes information specifically on the Art Museum and current exhibition, noise and lighting levels and other information relevant to sensory processing. Please contact the museum staff if you have any questions about the exhibition or Bundanon Relaxed dates for sensory-friendly visits to the exhibition.

Download the Sensory Map here.

Phone: 02 4422 2101

SEATING

There is a small amount of seating in the exhibition. Individual seating is also available from museum reception, please speak with the friendly staff if you would like extra seating to experience the show.

There is also a wheelchair available to borrow from the museum reception.

LARGE PRINT

Large print versions of the exhibition text are available to borrow from museum reception.

Audio Descriptions

A selection of audio descriptions are available below for rooms and works in the exhibition. For support in accessing the descriptions below, please speak to the gallery reception staff.

Audio descriptions are listed by room, clockwise.