Join artist Betty Kuntiwa Pumani for this vital panel discussion on the role of Aboriginal art centres as places of ongoing creation, intergenerational storytelling, and cultural and custodial care for Country.
Betty will be joined by representatives of Mimili Maku Arts and Bundanon CEO and exhibition curator Rachel Kent.
Betty rarely speaks publicly about her work, choosing instead to let her paintings speak for themselves. Her brief contribution to this discussion will offer a rare and meaningful opportunity to hear directly from one of the most influential painters working in Australia today.
This talk is Auslan interpreted.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Betty Kuntiwa Pumani’s major survey exhibition malatja-malatja (those who come after) is now at Bundanon and shows significant works by the artist alongside those of her late mother, Kunmanara (Milatjari) Pumani, and late sister, Kunmanara (Ngupulya) Pumani, bringing together three generations of artists and cultural leaders who have shaped the vision and legacy of Mimili Maku Arts.
ABOUT 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.
