“When I was a boy, traveling the Tanami with my dad…”
We are proud to present Adrian Jangala Robertson’s first solo exhibition with CHALK HORSE in collaboration with Bindi Mwerre Anthurre, where he created this body of work.
Station Days invites you to take a back seat in Adrian’s father’s truck as it rolls across the Tanami Road, privy to young Adrian’s life in Yalpirakinu – his mother’s Country.
‘Yalpirakinu’ is the Warlpiri way of referring to Yuelamu or Mt Allan Station, which lies just off the Tanami Road a few hours northwest of Mparntwe/Alice Springs. Adrian’s painting practice gives breath to the vast colour ways of the Country he comes from, with the tilted composition of his works giving the illusion that the paintings are moving, appearing as a series of stills from a memory. As a consummate colourist, Adrian’s intense yet controlled brushwork embodies his enduring connection to Yalpirakinu.
Truck Story is reminiscent of a time in Adrian’s life when he’d accompany his father up the winding dirt road to the cattle station to pick up supplies. On occasion, his mother would join them on their travels, sitting up front of the truck, telling stories. Staple items like powdered milk, sugar, tea and flour were brought back to share amongst family and community.
In Adrian’s body of works on paper, his drawings are framed in a way that you feel as though you’re seeing this Country from the window of his father’s truck, dense bushlands sweeping past. The intense texturising of the landscapes and people Adrian so fondly draws – including himself – is evocative, embedded with memories of people and place in his every pen stroke.
In addition and related to the subject of his homelands, Adrian also frequently paints portraits of his family. Figures of the artist’s familial love are usually placed inside the landscapes he vividly portrays, including his late father and founding Papunya Tula artist, Karpa (Kaapa) Jampitjinpa and sister, Julie Nangala Robertson, who is also a renowned artist working with the Warlukurlangu Artists in Yuendumu.
Adrian’s upbringing surrounded by his family of artists – including his late mother Eunice Napangardi, as well as the Western Desert art movement – has moulded him into the distinctive artist he is today.
The beauty inherent to Adrian’s subject matter is that everything derives from memories. By way of the ever-changing trees, bush, mountain ranges, ridges, waterways and the perpetual truck down a dirt road, Adrian articulates a relationship to place that makes his work so compelling. Similarly, Family in Yalpirakinu, a recurring title applied to many of Adrian’s works, has an airy, memory-like glaze to it that’s almost tangible. Adrian’s quiet, thoughtful nature is further evidence that much of his creative process involves weaving through memory before applying paint to canvas, or ink to paper.
Text by Aspen Beattie.
