Description

The large Ngurratjuta Iltja Ntjarra (“˜Many Hands“’) Art Centre was established in 2004 to nurture the tradition laid out by Albert Namatjira and the Aboriginal watercolour artists continue to paint in the tradition of the Hermannsburg style.

Many Hands Art Centre was developed by the Board of Ngurratjuta/Pmara Ntjarra Aboriginal Corporation in 2002, in recognition of a century of the birth of Albert Namatjira.

The Art Centre was officially opened on 27 February 2004. Artists include permanent residents of Alice Springs together with long and short-term visitors from the above mentioned communities and those painting in the communities themselves.

As well as the Namatjira style, the central Australian “˜dot painting“’ style is practised, as is naive figurative art such as that of Iris Taylor in which she documents life in Alice Springs and surrounding areas in a fusion of Western and Aboriginal imagery.

Daisy Leura Nakamarra is the widow of formative Papunya School painter Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri. Born c. 1936, she is of the Anmatyerr language group. She was featured in the National Museum of Australia“’s exhibition Papunya Painting: Out of the Desert, in 2009. She is a strong law woman who paints women’s subjects such as women’s ceremonies and bush tucker stories.