“I come from Rangani, that is north western Melville Island (one of the Tiwi Islands). Making this work, I reflect who I am, who my family are and our dances, our names and identities. Myself and my sisters, brother, nieces, nephews, all my children. Kirrilima, jungle fowl dreaming is our dance, owl is our protector, Barra, bream, mangrove Jack, salmon, jewfish, queen fish, trevally, stingray, sea turtle, carpet snake and goanna. I paint these designs for family identities and together we stay as strong Tiwi.
“This is my tribute and memory of my father, Eddie, the first potter here. He made pots this way, throwing clay on his wheel while we kids watched. He loved to fire in a wood firing kiln taking a long time. I hope one of my kids will be inspired to carry on”.
These are the proud words of the ailing Robert Puruntatameri, describing the suite of 16 linked pots that are being offered for sale this weekend to raise funds for his health care.
Curator (and friend) Jennifer Isaacs backgrounds the sale:
“Following a 2023 workshop at Geoff Crispin Pottery in Grafton, these sixteen celadon vessels were reassembled and grouped by Robert Puruntatameri to form a remarkable single work. It is a visual statement about Rangani, his own lands. Robert Puruntatameri is the Traditional Owner of Rangani, and in his own words, ‘I am Rangani’. His own Tiwi family is represented in each vessel, with their identities elegantly painted to signify the animal, fish, or bird persona, their song or dance”.
Robert’s work has been deeply influenced by the history and events surrounding the establishment of Australia’s oldest Indigenous studio pottery by his father, the pioneering Tiwi potter Eddie Puruntatameri, often referred to as the ‘father of Indigenous Australian Studio Pottery’.
Eddie had trained Robert’s elder brother Cecil to take over the pottery, but both Eddie and Cecil tragically died in a boating accident in 1995, so the directorship of the pottery fell on to Robert’s 20 year old shoulders.
Eddie had been deeply influenced by English ceramic pioneer Michael Cardew, a partner of the iconic Bernard Leach. This was the group that reinvigorated English ceramics by looking to the East and introducing wood-fired stoneware of simplicity, made by hand on the potter’s wheel from materials in the immediate environment. Michael Cardew came to Australia in the 1960s to lead the first Aboriginal pottery workshop – a communal enterprise at Bagot in Darwin. It was here that Eddie learnt to love wood-fired pots which he threw by hand on the potter’s wheel, and eventually he took this skill back with him to Bathurst Island and set up his own pottery with the aid of the Australian founder of the Sturt Pottery, Ivan McMeekin.
Later, Eddie had moved the pottery to Pirlangimpi on Melville Island. When Robert began to take over this pottery, he was assisted by John Bosco Tipiloura, sitting beside him and teaching by demonstration. Under his guidance, Robert developed his own approach as a ceramicist, continuously exploring connections to the early stoneware traditions of his father.
Robert was shortlisted for the inaugural Australian Indigenous Ceramic Art Award at the Shepparton Art Gallery in 2007; in 2010, his works were included in the exhibition Arampini: Artists from the Tiwi Islands at the National Art School, Sydney; he has been featured in Janet Mansfield’s prestigious Ceramic Art + Perception magazine.
Twice appointed artist-in-residence at the National Art School in Sydney, Robert’s ceramics are in the collections of the National Museum of Australia, the Powerhouse Museum, Shepparton Art Gallery and the Lismore Regional Gallery.
Robert Puruntatameri is also highly skilled as a carver and is one of the Munupi art centre’s most successful and creative producers of ironwood ‘Pukumani’ poles and ‘Tokwampini’ (bird) carvings. A natural athlete, Robert has represented the Tiwi Islands and the Northern Territory at both basketball and football. He has also represented Munupi Arts and Crafts on the ANKA Executive Committee.
This one-off collection is offered free of any dealer or gallery commission, at a particularly difficult time for Robert and his family. The collection is considered to be of the highest significance to the story of Indigenous ceramics in Australia. So Robert’s family and the Aboriginal Benefits Foundation are keen to find a home in one of our most prestigious collecting institutions for this important body of work – which can be viewed at the Art Atrium Gallery in Botany from 2.30pm this Saturday 23rd March.
