Artna Alpeyt - Bush Flowers

ARTNA ALPEYT BUSH FLOWERS

ARTNA ALPEYT - BUSH FLOWERS

Front: Levina Pitjara Morton, My Country, 2025, acrylic on linen, 76x107cm (detail)

Left: Kindy Kemarre Ross

Irrultja is My Country, 2025, acrylic on heavy weight linen, 91x61cm (detail)

Salt Contemporary In partnership with Everywhen Art & Artists of Ampilatwatja

February 5 - March 1, 2026

ABOUT

In 1999, the Alyawarre community of Ampilatwatja, 325 km northeast of Mparntwe (Alice Springs) decided to establish a community art centre. Shortly after, they agreed to focus on painting bush medicine and other plants of their Country – incorporating also the waterholes, mountains, sandhills and open plains of their land, which are integral to their ancestral creation stories.

For this exhibition,13 artists from Artists of Ampilatwatja have chosen the evocative subject of bush flowers. Flowering plants of the region - most of which are used for bush medicine - include Wild Berry Emu Bush, Irmangka Irmangka, Green Bird Flower, Bush Plum, Bush Tomato, Yellow Acacia and many more.

After rain the country springs to life, carpeted in shades of magenta, green, red, pink, yellow, white and other coloured flowers, shrubs and grasses. As artist Elizabeth Ngwarraye Bonney notes, “bush flowers are everywhere”.

Flowers are the subjects of the joyous paintings by Denise Ngwarreye Bonney, Diane Kemarre Ross, Jessie Ngwarraye Ross, Kindy Kemarre Ross, Michelle Pula Holmes, Nancy Pitjara Frank, Rita Pitjara Beasley and Robina Pitjara Jones while broader landscape views feature in the work of Elizabeth Ngwarraye Bonney, Jacinta Pula Morrison, Kathleen Namina Rambler, Levinia Pitjara Morton and Selina Teece Pwerle.

Susan McCulloch OAM

Exhibition curator February 2026

“I still hunt my Grandmother’s Country for goanna, bush medicine and yams… walking through the country makes me happy.

When I look at the distant hills I can feel my grandmother. Bush flowers are everywhere.

Painting my grandmother’s country reminds about those times.” Artists of Ampilatwatja artist Elizabeth Ngwarraye Bonney

DENISE NGWARRAYE BONNEY

Denise was born in 1968 and is a well-known artist painting with the Eastern Desert community of Ampilatwajta. She has been painting since 2007 and enjoys painting on her own and with her daughters and mother Eileen Bonney - a senior member of Artists of Ampilatwatja.

Denise has been painting at Ampilatwatja for over ten years, she has four daughters and a son. She is a proud grandmother and is happiest when she is with her family. Denise paints her grandmother’s country, Canteen Creek. Her painting themes are bush medicine and landscape.

Her work has been included in many exhibitions of Ampilatwatja Artists in leading galleries around Australia and in 2018 her work was selected as a finalist in the King & Wood Malleson Art Award.

DIANE KEMARRE ROSS

Diane was born in Alice Springs in 1988 and grew up at an outstation called Irrultja. Irrultja was very quiet when she was growing up and Diane would go hunting and collect bush medicine with her family. Diane began school in Irrultja and then went onto college in Alice Springs where she met good friends, it was a happy time.

Diane lives in Ampilatwatja now and has her own family, two children a girl and a boy. She still visits family in Irrultja and they all go hunting and collect bush medicine together.

She began painting when she moved to Ampilatwatja and would watch and learn from her Aunty Rosie Ngwarraye Ross and her big sister Margaret Kemarre Ross who are both successful painters from Ampilatwatja. Diane enjoys painting bush medicine that she finds when travelling out bush.

ELIZABETH NGWARRAYE BONNEY

“My Great Great Grandfather’s country is Arlenkw. My Grandfather’s Mother’s country is Titjambera. My Great Grandmother’s country is Arene. I paint to keep my country alive, so we can know and teach our young ones, our grandchildren. When I’m not painting I like to go visiting family or hunting for echidna, sugar bag and bush potato”.

Elizabeth was born in Tennant Creek. Her mother Eileen is one of the original artists of Ampilatwatja and for many years they would sit and paint together.

Elizabeth is one of the senior traditional healers in Ampilatwatja.

JACINTA PULA MORRISON

“This is my country, my view of country.”

Morrison is an emerging artist who paints the layered landscape of Alyawarr, Central Australia.

Knowing your country is an important part of living in a remote community like Ampilatwatja. Knowing when and where to go hunting and gathering, knowing where there is ‘soakage’ (where you can dig for water), travelling with family for ceremonies, and maintaining a connection with the land.

JESSIE NGWARRAYE ROSS

“I paint my Country, Amaroo. I paint about bush medicine and the old ways, when people get sick we boil the bush medicine to washing babies and we drink it when we get the flu.

Our Grandmothers teach us to find bush medicine through painting and collecting bush medicine out bush. I have always loved to paint.”

An Alyawarre woman born in 1961, Jessie Ross is a leading artist from the community of Ampilatwatja.

The purple flowers depicted in Jessie’s painting are tropical speedwell which are used on skin conditions e.g. scabies and also made into a tonic for drinking. The yellow flowers are pretty flowers that grow in the region and the purple flowers are bush tucker, bush tomato.

Jessie’s works have been included in a number of exhibitions in leading galleries around Australia.

KATHLEEN NANIMA RAMBLER

‘I draw a lot of inspiration from my homeland and my childhood memories of Barrow Creek and the country surrounding there. My paintings are often reminiscing of hunting and camping trips, climbing the hills to get brilliant views and walking my land with my family. I like to paint my homeland, at Barrow Creek, because it as a way of connecting to and remembering my home.’

Kathleen’s dot work is exquisitely fine and she uses this technique to make patterns within the landscapes of her paintings demonstrating her peaceful, patient disposition and a deep love and connection to her country. The work produced by Kathleen is recognisably distinct, due to the application of her fine patterned dots and the often bright and lively figurative depiction of the landscape.

KINDY KEMARRE ROSS

Kindy’s predominant theme in her paintings is ‘strong bush medicine’, demonstrating a deep connection to her country. Her work pays homage to the significance and use of traditional bush medicine, allowing an insight into her community. Yet underneath the iridescent surface, there is an underlying sense that there is more to this landscape than meets the eye. In keeping with the religious laws, Kindy reveals only a small amount of knowledge to the uninitiated.

The esoteric information that is held sacred to her and her people is concealed from the public and layered underneath the common visual narrative, masked by the delicate layered dots of the painting.

LEVINA PITJARA MORTON

Levina was born in 1984 and is the granddaughter of well-known artist Lilly Kemarre Morton. She began painting in 2010. In June 2012 Levina was invited to London to open the Ampilatwatja artists exhibition and there also, sold all her paintings. In September 2012 Levina used an SLR camera for the first time and entered the Desart Mob Photographic competition where she was awarded a highly commended for her images.

MICHELLE PULA HOLMES

Michelle’s subject matter is always ‘strong bush medicine’, demonstrating a deep connection to her country. Her work pays homage to the significance and use of traditional bush medicine, allowing an insight into her community.

Michelle’s family still traditionally hunt and gather, the love for her land, plants, flowers and trees inspire her paintings from season to season.

Michelle was part of the original Utopia Batik art movement during 1988, the entire collection was purchased by the Robert Holmes Court Foundation.

In 2013 Michelle won the People’s Choice Award in the 30th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA).

NANCY PITJARA FRANK

“I was born in the bush at Ammaroo Station, along the Sandover. I have never seen the ocean or a big city. My mother and father were strong healthy people who taught me and my younger sister Rita the traditional way to hunt for kangaroo, goanna and porcupine.

We know how to gather bush tucker (secrets of the earth) and bush medicine plants. My mother used grinding stones to make seed damper.

When I paint I think about good memories, being a young girl and walking through the land. My mother made paint from two stones and showed us ceremony painting and how to sing and dance for ceremonies. I still sing and dance and collect the bush medicines; I like to make tea from the small purple flowers of Arreth (hill fuchsia). Painting bush medicine stories is important because it helps to maintain a strong knowledge and culture for the community.”

RITA PITJARA BEASLEY

Rita Beasley is married to Murphy Teece, also an artist of the community, and lives at Ampilatwatja with their extended family. Rita has been painting for more than twenty years. She enjoys painting and feels it important for the community. Her artworks show special hunting and gathering grounds, all of which are connected to the dreaming of that country.

Rita’s vibrant palette, shifting patterns of pointillism, depiction of plant, geography and light, comes from Rita’s intimate affnity with her country.

ROBINA PITJARA JONES

Robina was born in 1987. Robina’s painting style demonstrates a deep connection to her country, her bushes and wild medicine flowers blend softly into the earth and she t often employs a subdued and natural palette.

Artists from Ampilatwatja often omit the sky from their compositions, allowing the viewer’s eye to scan the landscape without a focal point, presenting two viewpoints of the country, combining an aerial and frontal view in the one composition.

SELINA TEECE PWERLE

Selina Teece Pwerle was born in 1977 in her traditional country of Antarrengeny, which lies in Alyawarr country north of the Utopia region in Central Australia. Selina grew up in the 1980s and 90s surrounded by famous artists of the Utopia school of painting and developed her own artistic talents at a very young age and is increasingly revealing a great versatility as an artist. Her painting themes range from depictions of gum blossoms and the leaves of the spinifex plant to landscapes that relate the stories from her father’s country Antarrengeny. Notable for its fine sense of colour and balanced design, Selina is a dedicated painter.

Selina’s work has been represented in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally since 2001. She lives at the Irrerlirre Outstation in the Arltar/Pilta region, northeast of Alice Springs. She lives with her husband, two children and a large extended family.

ARTNA ALPEYT - BUSH FLOWERS

For all enquiries contact the gallery

Salt Contemporary In partnership with Everywhen Art & Artists of Ampilatwatja

February 5 - March 1, 2026