Sad news has come from Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency at Fitzroy Crossing in the Kimberley that the artist Sonia Kurarra has died. Actually, she was not just an artist, but a storyteller and a cultural custodian. Here’s their tribute:
“The late Sonia Kurarra grew up in the river country at Noonkanbah, where she helped the kindergarten teacher with teaching art. They would take the children out to the sandy billabong and teach them how to paint and dance. There was a ngarrangkarni (everywhen) snake that lived in the billabong. His name was Nangurra.
“Sonia began painting at Mangkaja in the early 1990s, working mostly on paper. As her career and confidence grew, she started to practice and develop her skills, moving into more ambitious and complex works on canvas. Since 2008, Sonia had been working predominantly on canvas. She had exhibited in numerous group shows and had an overwhelming response to her first solo shows in 2009”.
And here’s what I wrote about her Sydney debut in 2009.
“Sonia painted the sandy billabong country along the stretch of the Martuwarra/Fitzroy River that ran directly behind her Noonkanbah community. After the floodwaters receded, there were billabongs that held a plentiful supply of parlka (barramundi), kurlumajarti (catfish), and bream. She painted gapi (fish), parrmarr (rocks) where the fish was cooked, ngurti (coolamon), and a karli (boomerang).
“Sonia painted these images over and over as though they were etched into her psyche; works that were linear representations in monotones and others that were layers lathered on with wild and confident brush strokes. These contemporary compositions displayed an outstanding understanding of colour.
“She was truly a one-of-a-kind artist whose work was beloved and collected around the world. She brought immense life and vibrancy to the studio and was as fierce as she was exceptional in her unique style of depicting the mighty Martuwarra. We implore friends and family to reach out to Mangkaja Arts to pass on stories that can be shared with the family when the time is right”.
Sonia won the Hedland Art Award Best Indigenous Work prize in 2010. She also experimented with work on polycarbonate surfaces and on cowhides.
Commenting on a work of her’s in the AGNSW collection, Sonia is quoted as saying:
“Martuwarra is my river country; this painting is all about the Fitzroy River which flows down through Nookanbah where I live. All kinds of fish live in the water, we catch big mob of fish here. I like Parlka (barramundi). We catch catfish and brim here too. Nganku (shark), Wirritunany (swordfish) and Stingray also live here. These fish live in these waters long after the flood has gone. Also this painting is about barramundi swimming on the surface of the water, you can also see the Wakiri (pandanus tree) and rocks all around. When the barramundi get tired they go back into the rock holes. These rock holes hold all the Parlka (barramundi) that live in the river. Kalputu (water snakes) also live in these rock holes”.
And at a solo exhibition in Perth, Lynley Nargoodah, Special Projects Curator at Mangkaja Arts summed Sonia up:
“Kurarra is like the Martuwarra (River). She can be calm like the soft flows of the Martuwarra or destructive depending on the mood she’s in. Kurarra paints free flowing, navigating each twist and turn of the Martuwarra. As the river brings life to the Martuwarra People, so does each brush stroke as it hits the canvas.
“As the Wakari (pandanus) stands calmly on the waters edge, to me it resembles the calmness that painting gives Kurarra as she reminisces. The country is slowly changing. Memories of loved ones fishing, hunting and gathering along the Martuwarra’s edge with family are like the flow of the Martuwarra, you can’t touch the same current twice.
“Like the Martuwarra that breaks it’s banks and floods the country, so does her choice of mediums from canvas to Perspex and paper. Like a permanent water source, her style never changes the Martuwarra runs through her. She is the Martuwarra; just let her flow”.
