Shorty Jangala Robertson | FireWorks Gallery

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Selected works

FW15724 Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming)	FW15725 Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) - Puyurru	FW15726 Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) - Puyurru
FW15727 Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming)	FW16778 Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming)

Bio & CV

Shorty Jangala Robertson was born at Jila (Chilla Well), a large soakage and claypan north west of Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community located 290 kms north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. He lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle with his parents, older brother and extended Warlpiri family. They travelled vast distances across desert country, passing through Warlukurlangu, south west of Jila and Ngarlikurlangu, north of Yuendumu, visiting Jangala’s, his skin brothers. His childhood memories consist of stories associated with the Coniston massacre of Aboriginal people. Families were also shot at Wantaparri, close to Jila. Shorty Jangala Robertson had virtually no contact with white fellas during his youth but remembered leaving Jila for Mt Theo ‘to hide’ from being shot. His father died at Mt Theo. He moved with his mother to Mt Doreen Station, and subsequently the new settlement of Yuendumu. During World War II, the army took people from Yuendumu to the other Warlpiri settlement at Lajamanu. Shorty was taken and separated from his mother; however, she came to get him on foot and together they travelled hundreds of miles back to Chilla Well. Drought food and medical supplies forced Shorty and his family back to Yuendumu from time to time. His working life was full of adventure and hard work for different enterprises in the Alice Springs and Yuendumu areas. He finally settled at Yuendumu in 1967 after the Australian Citizen Referendum. It is extraordinary in all his travels and jobs over his whole working life, that he escaped the burgeoning and flourishing Central Desert art movement of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Thus Shorty’s paintings are fresh, vigorous and new. His use of colour to paint and interpret his dreamings of Ngapa (Water), Watiyawarnu (Acacia), Yankirri (Emu) and Pamapardu (Flying Ant) is vital, yet upholding the Warlpiri tradition. Shorty was well in his 70’s when he started painting. He was an active member of the Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu. His first solo exhibition at Alcaston Gallery in 2003 was met with great artistic acclaim. Since then he exhibited in Aboriginal Art Exhibitions in Australia and overseas.

He passed away 28-09-2014 on a sunny Sunday morning.

Courtesy of Warlukurlangu, 2016

Story/Statement

Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) - Puyurru story

The site depicted in this painting is Puyurru, west of Yuendumu. In the usually dry creek beds are water soakages or naturally occurring wells. Two Jangala men, rainmakers, sang the rain, unleashing a giant storm. It travelled across the country, with the lightning striking the land. This storm met up with another storm from Wapurtali, to the west, was picked up by a ‘kirrkarlan’ (brown falcon [Falco berigora]) and carried further west until it dropped the storm at Purlungyanu, where it created a giant soakage. At Puyurru the bird dug up a giant snake, ‘warnayarra’ (the rainbow serpent’) and the snake carried water to create the large lake, Jillyiumpa, close to an outstation in this country.

This story belongs to Jangala men and Nangala women. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, associated sites and other elements. In many paintings of this Jukurrpa curved and straight lines represent the ‘ngawarra’ (ﬂood waters) running through the landscape. Motifs frequently used to depict this story include small circles representing ‘mulju’ (water soakages) and short bars depicting ‘mangkurdu’ (cumulus & stratocumulus clouds).

Courtesy of Warlukurlangu, 2016

FireWorks gallery would like to acknowledge that Shorty Janagala Robertson is represented by Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation.

SHORTY JANGALA ROBERTSON

Born: 1925 Jila (Chilla Well)

Language: Warlpiri

Country: Puyurru NT

Region: Yuendumu NT

EXHIBITIONS—SOLO

2016 Get Shorty, FireWorks gallery, Brisbane, QLD

2011 Shorty Jangala Robertson, Kate Owen Gallery, NSW

2009 Ngapa Jukurrpa - Water Dreaming, Cooee Aboriginal Art, Sydney

2007 Shorty Jangala Robertson - Singing in the Rain, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.

2006 Rainmaker Rhythms - new works by Shorty Jangala Robertson, Cooee Aboriginal Art, Sydney

2005 Ngapa - new paintings on canvas, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne.

2005 Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT

2004 Ngapa Jukurrpa – Water Dreaming, Cooee Aboriginal Art, Sydney

2003 First Solo Exhibition, November, Alcaston Gallery

EXHIBITIONS - GROUP (SELECTED)

2014 Warlu on Fire, FireWorks gallery, Brisbane, QLD

2010 Exposition d'art aborigene d'Australie, IDAIA and Galerie Princesse de Kiev, France

2009 Nyirripi & Yuendumu Artists, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA

2009 Value of Country, ArtKelch, Freiburg, Germany

2009 Centred Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands

2008 Artists of Nyirripi & Yuendumu, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA

2008 Warlukurlangu Artists, Established & Emerging Artists, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney, NSW

2008 Les couleurs du desert australien, L'Antidote, Geneva, Switzerland

2007 Warlukurlangu - Aboriginal Art aus Yuendumu, ArtKelch, Freiburg, Germany

2007 Tiwa Ngurrara, Strangers? Artkelch, Freiburg, Germany

2007 Above & Beyond, Caruana Fine Art & Reid Mercantile, Sydney, NSW

2007 SIPA, Seoul International Print, Photo & Edition Works Art Fair, Southern Exchange, S Korea

2007 Stocking, Artereal, Sydney, NSW

2007 The Christmas Show, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT

2007 Warlukurlangu Artists, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW

2006 Warlukurlangu Artists - Recent Works, Mason Gallery, Darwin, NT

2006 Warlpiri Artists of Yuendumu, Japingka Gallery, WA

2005 WAAA Collection Flinders Museum Adelaide, SA

2005 Luminous, Northern Editions, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT

2004 Big Country Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT

2003 Warlukurlangu Artists, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

2002 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC

COLLECTIONS

Araluen Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs Artbank, Sydney, NSW

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Flinders University Art Museum, Melbourne

Gordon Darling Foundation, Canberra

Artbank, Sydney, NSW

Private Collections

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