Marina Pumani Brown’s first solo exhibition is coming to the Gruin Gallery in Los Angeles, April 14-May 13, 2023. A native of the Mimili Community on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands of South Australia, Brown comes from a long line of talented female painters. Her grandmother was Milatjari Pumani, who was one of the most famous artists in the APY region, and she grew up watching her mother, Betty Kuntiwa Pumani and aunt, Ngupulya Pumani paint as well. Brown has developed a distinctive interpretation of the Tjukurpa passed on to her through her family line. She expresses her role in the larger story of cultural continuity in unique and powerful paintings which resemble abstract maps of the landscape. In her work she references the essence of her family’s homeland around Antara and Paralpi, nestled in the granite hills of the Everard Ranges.
In her art practice, Brown shows contemporary ways of seeing her ancestral knowledge, sharing insights into her experience of day-to-day community life. Brown often spends the weekends out on country with her mother and daughter, collecting minkulpa (bush tobacco), maku (witchetty grubs) and care for the local tjukula (rock holes). Particularly after kapi pulka (big rains), the land becomes so fertile, that they harvest bush foods like the gnurru (lollie tree) and camp out on country like the old people used to.
“My paintings are both literal maps of the landscape and objects of meaning removed from any physical representation,” Brown explains. “Though not always depicted, the importance of Antara is never lost in my work. The site has been integral to the existence of Anangu culture since the beginning of time. Today my life is different to that of my ancestors and my work is a tool to document my part in a story that spreads across timespans bigger than our imagination.”
In 2020 Brown received a special commendation as part of the Churchie Emerging Art Prize at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. She has since been a finalist in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (2020), the Wynne Prize (2021) and the Len Fox Award (2022).
Click here for more of Brown’s work, and details on the exhibition.
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