Acrylic on Linen
122 x 122 cm
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BORN circa 1925
REGION Yuendumu
LANGUAGE Warlpiri
Background
Shorty Jangala Robertson was born at Jila (Chilla Well), a large soakage and claypan north-west of Yuendumu. 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, and north of Yuendumu, visiting Jangala’s skin brothers.
Shorty’s childhood memories consist of stories associated with the Coniston massacre of Aboriginal people and the shooting of families at Wantaparri, which is close to Jila. Shorty had virtually no contact with white fellas during his youth but remembers leaving Jila for Mt Theo ‘to hide’ from being shot. After his father died at Mt Theo, Shorty 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 traveled 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 Yuendumu area. He finally settled at Yuendumu in 1967 after the Australian Citizen Referendum.
It is extraordinary that in all his travels and jobs over his whole working life, Shorty escaped the burgeoning and flourishing Central Desert art movement of the 1970s and 1980s. 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. This accomplished artist is an active member of Warlukurlangu Co operative. He lives at Yuendumu with his wife and artist Lady Nungarrayi Robertson.
EXHIBITIONS
2003 First Solo Exhibition, A November lcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2004 Coo-ee, Sydney, NSW
2005 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2005 Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT
2006 Shorty Jangala Robertson, Coo-ee, Sydney, NSW
2007 Singing the rain, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2011 Shorty Jangala Robertson, Kate Owen Gallery, NSW
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2002 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC
2003 Warlukurlangu Artists’, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2003 All About Art’, Alcaston Gallery at Depot Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2003 Kurruwarri Pipangka Designs on Paper’ CDU Gallery, Charles Darwin University NT
2004 Desert Mob’ Alice Springs Cultural Precinct, Araluen Arts Centre, NT
2004 Painting Country’, Thornquest Gallery, QLD
2004 Dreaming Stories’, Indigenart, Perth, WA
2004 New Works from Yuendumu’, Bellas Gallery, Brisbane, QLD
2004 Big Country’ Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT
2004 All About Art ‘ Annual Collectors Exhibition’, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2004 Recent Works from Warlakurlangu’, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2004 The Alice Prize’, Araluen Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs, NT
2005 Warlukurlangu Group Show’, Beaver Gallery, Canberra, ACT
2005 WAAA Collection’ Flinders Museum Adelaide, SA
2005 Warlukurlangu Collection’, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs, NT
2005 Jukurrpa Wiri ‘Important Dreaming Stories’ Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs, NT
2005 Recent Works’, Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA
2005 Luminous’, Northern Editions, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, NT
2005 Big Country Exhibition’, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT
2005 Land of Diversity’, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2006 Warlukurlangu Artists New Works’, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2006 Warlukurlangu Artists – Recent Works’, Mason Gallery, Darwin, NT
2006 Warlpiri Artists of Yuendumu’, Japingka Gallery, WA
2006 Summer Evening’, Anne Snell Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2007 Warlukurlangu – Aboriginal Art aus Yuendumu’, ArtKelch, Freiburg, Germany
2007 Tiwa Ngurrara, Strangers?’ Artkelch, Freiburg, Germany
2007 Desert Mob’, Baguette Gallery, Brisbane, QLD, in conjunction with Suzanne O’Connell Gallery May
2007 Yuendumu & Kimberley, Twin Indigenous Show’, United Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2007 Couples, painting partners from Yuendumu & Nyirrpi’, Gadfly Gallery, Perth, WA
2007 Desert Dreamings: earth + water’, Artitja Fine Art, Perth, WA
2007 Shalom Gamarada Aboriginal Art Exhibition’, Shalom College, Sydney, NSW
2007 Water for Life’, Victorian Artists Society, World Vision Exhibition, Melbourne, VIC
2007 Above and Beyond’, Caruana & Reid Fine Art, Sydney, NSW
2007 Contemporary Masters of the Central Desert’, SF Fine Art, Sydney, NSW
2007 Above & Beyond’, Caruana Fine Art & Reid Mercantile, Sydney, NSW
2007 The Best of the Best jewels of the desert’, Framed Gallery, Darwin NT
2007 SIPA’, Seoul International Print, Photo & Edition Works Art Fair, Southern Exchange, S Korea
2007 ‘Australian Aboriginal Artists from the Central Desert’, Jeffrey Moose Gallery, Seattle WA, USA November
2007 Tiwa Ngurrara, Strangers?’, Artkelch, Freiburg, Germany
2007 Aboriginal Printmakers NT & QLD’, Framed Gallery, Darwin
2007 Stocking’, Artereal, Sydney, NSW
2007 The Christmas Show’, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT
2007 Warlukurlangu Artists’, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2008 Les couleurs du desert australien’, L’Antidote, Geneva, Switzerland
2008 Desert Mob, Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs, NT
2008 Aboriginal Art aus der Central und Western Desert’, ArtKelch, Germany
2008 Artists of Nyirripi & Yuendumu’, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA
2008 Warlukurlangu Artists, the art of Yuendumu’, La Fontaine Centre of Contemporary Art, Bahrain UAE
2008 Opening Doors into Colourful Dreamtime, ReDot Gallery, Singapore
2008 Shalom Gamarada Aboriginal Art Exhibition, Caspary Conference Centre, Sydney, NSW
2008 Representations of Country, Artitja Fine Art, Perth, WA
2008 Warlukurlangu Artists, Established & Emerging Artists, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney, NSW
2008 New Directions, Gecko Gallery, Broome, WA
2008 Bush Tucker 08, Arereal Gallery, Sydney, NSW
2008 Desert Stories, Artitja Fine Art, Perth, WA
2008 Warlukurlangu Artists’, Beaver Gallery, Canberra, ACT
2008 Warlukurlangu Wonders’, Warlpiri Paintings from Yuendumu, Art Mob, Tasmania
2009 Nyirripi & Yuendumu Artists’, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA
2009 Value of Country, ArtKelch, Freiburg, Germany
2009 Centred Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2010 Exposition d’art aborigene d’Australie, IDAIA and Galerie Princesse de Kiev, France
COLLECTIONS
Araluen Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs
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
Private Collections
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2006 ‘Football from Australia’s heart’, National Indigenous Times, Issue 29, vol. 2, April 16, 2003, p. 21
Harvey Galleries was founded by the Harvey family in 1994 with an eye to establish a dynamic and inclusive contemporary art space on the North Shore of Sydney. For almost three decades we have expanded our reach to over three gallery locations and an ever expanding stable of the best artists Australia has to offer.
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