Ngaruwanajirri Art Centre

At Wurrumiyanga on Bathurst Island, one beautiful building known as the Tiwi Sistine Chapel or The Keeping Place houses a small group of Tiwi artists who attend daily to create artwork in a peaceful environment.

This Centre began in 1994 with funding for the support of Tiwi with a disability and the core attendants today are disability artists. They have each developed exceptional creative skill. Sometimes referred to as free, loose, naive, or Outsider art, the work of Ngaruwanajirri artists is unique. A separate group of able-bodied Tiwi carvers work alongside this core group in a purpose-built space adjacent to the Keeping Place creating both large and small carvings.

The artists are guided towards excellence in their finished artworks and are represented in State Galleries across Australia and over the world. Renowned for their use of traditional Tiwi cultural materials such as ground-up local ochre pigments, artists also work with a variety of contemporary media including wax and dyes on silk.

Quick view
Jikipayinga Pitipita Jilamara (Crocodile Belly Design) on Stringybark with Ochre Pigment by Jane Margaret Tipuamantumirri
Aboriginal Bush Traders
$400.00
Quick view
Minga on Strinybark with Ochre Pigment by Alexandrina Kantilla
Aboriginal Bush Traders
$150.00
Quick view
Juamutakari Jilamara (Wet Season Design) on Stringbark with Ochre Pigments by Ken Wayne Kantilla
Aboriginal Bush Traders
$250.00
Jikipayinga Pitipita Jilamara (Crocodile Belly Design) on Stringybark with Ochre Pigment by Jane Margaret Tipuamantumirri
Jikipayinga Pitipita Jilamara (Crocodile Belly Design) on Stringybark with Ochre Pigment by Jane Margaret Tipuamantumirri
Aboriginal Bush Traders

Jikipayinga Pitipita Jilamara (Crocodile Belly Design) on Stringybark with Ochre Pigment by Jane Margaret Tipuamantumirri

$400.00
1 in stock
  • Artist: Jane Margaret Tipuamantumirri
  • Title: Jikipayinga Pitipita Jilamara (Crocodile Belly Design)
  • Art Centre: Ngaruwanajirri, Tiwi Islands
  • Size: 12.5 x 35.5cm
  • Medium: Stringbark with Ochre Pigments with PVA fixative
  • Year born: 1968
  • Skin Group: Mullet
  • Dance: Shark 

Ngaruwanajirri means “Helping one another”

This Centre began in 1994 with funding for the support of Tiwi with a disability and the core attendants today are disability artists. They have each developed exceptional creative skill. Sometimes referred to as free, loose, naive, or Outsider art, the work of Ngaruwanajirri artists is unique. A separate group of able-bodied Tiwi carvers work alongside this core group in a purpose-built space adjacent to the Keeping Place creating both large and small carvings.

Jane Margaret is one of the Centre’s notable painters on paper. She draws her subject matter from the wild life of the Island such as fish, magpie geese and sharks as well as craft items used by Tiwi including Tunga, (painted bark carriers) and arm bands worn for ceremonial dances. She also frequently looks to the historic painted ceiling for inspiration. With a long history of earth ochre painting on Arches paper as well as batik designs on silk fabrics and monotype prints, Jane now works in watercolour and black gesso on Saunders Waterford 638gsm paper. She still occasionally paints in ochres however she is enjoying the translucent quality of watercolour which is so different from ochre paint.

Jane’s work has been sought by collectors and Institutions including Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Education, Charles Darwin University Art Collection in Darwin, the University of Newcastle Art Collection in NSW, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of South Australia. She exhibited widely in Ngaruwanajirri exhibitions over more than two decades including the Centre’s annual exhibition in Darwin at the time of the Darwin Festival. She featured in all the major exposes of Ngaruwanajirri art interstate including the 2021 Tiwi Exhibition in the National Gallery of Victoria, November 2020- March 2021 and Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art , AGSA 2021 to January 2022.

Minga on Strinybark with Ochre Pigment by Alexandrina Kantilla
Minga on Strinybark with Ochre Pigment by Alexandrina Kantilla
Aboriginal Bush Traders

Minga on Strinybark with Ochre Pigment by Alexandrina Kantilla

$150.00
1 in stock
  • Artist:  Alexandrina Kantilla
  • Title: Minga
  • Art Centre: Ngaruwanajirri, Tiwi Islands
  • Size: 23.5 x 4.5cm
  • Medium: Stringbark with Ochre Pigments with PVA fixative
  • Year born: 1974
  • Skin Group: Pig
  • Dance: March Fly

Ngaruwanajirri means “Helping one another”

This Centre began in 1994 with funding for the support of Tiwi with a disability and the core attendants today are disability artists. They have each developed exceptional creative skill. Sometimes referred to as free, loose, naive, or Outsider art, the work of Ngaruwanajirri artists is unique. A separate group of able-bodied Tiwi carvers work alongside this core group in a purpose-built space adjacent to the Keeping Place creating both large and small carvings.

Alexandrina Kantilla has been exhibiting her work since her first group exhibition, Pupuni Yinkiti Arimuwu Kapi Winga, Good Food- Sea Food, an ArtBack Nets Travelling Exhibition from 2000-2004. Alexandrina worked at the Ngaruwanajirri Art Centre, Bathurst Island, as a painter in natural ochres on Arches paper, on four colour lino block prints on paper, but her forte is batik- designing waxing and dyeing silk scarves using Drimarine K dyes and Naphthol dyes,. She has been included in most Ngaruwanajirri group exhibitions exhibiting long batik silk scarves. The latter, much admired for their beauty, were featured in the Darwin Supreme Court Festival of Darwin exhibition in 2006.

In 2007 her silk scarves were again featured in“Yirrinkiripwaja” a Ngaruwanajirri Group exhibition at FAC Gallery, University of Wollongong, N.S.W and in 2008 in the’ Fabulous Top End Fabrics - Exhibition of Textiles from the Tiwi Islands’ exhibition at Territory Craft.

Alexandrina Kantilla was again included in the extensive exhibition ‘Ngaruwanajirri: helping one another’ at Charles Darwin University Gallery 2011.

Juamutakari Jilamara (Wet Season Design) on Stringbark with Ochre Pigments by Ken Wayne Kantilla
Juamutakari Jilamara (Wet Season Design) on Stringbark with Ochre Pigments by Ken Wayne Kantilla
Aboriginal Bush Traders

Juamutakari Jilamara (Wet Season Design) on Stringbark with Ochre Pigments by Ken Wayne Kantilla

$250.00
1 in stock
  • Artist:  Ken Wayne Kantilla
  • Title: Juamutakari Jilamara (Wet Season Design)
  • Art Centre: Ngaruwanajirri, Tiwi Islands
  • Size: 17.5 x 19cm
  • Medium: Stringbark with Ochre Pigments
  • Year born: 1967
  • Skin Group: Sun
  • Dance: Pig

Ngaruwanajirri means “Helping one another”

This Centre began in 1994 with funding for the support of Tiwi with a disability and the core attendants today are disability artists. They have each developed exceptional creative skill. Sometimes referred to as free, loose, naive, or Outsider art, the work of Ngaruwanajirri artists is unique. A separate group of able-bodied Tiwi carvers work alongside this core group in a purpose-built space adjacent to the Keeping Place creating both large and small carvings.

Ken Wayne Kantilla works at Ngaruwanajirri Art Centre and is the current Chairman. He produces delicately executed works on paper with painstaking skill as well as paintings on canvas, ironwood carvings, and natural ochres on shells. In the 1980s Ken Wayne lived for two years in Victoria, attending St Bede`s College, Mentone. Ken has been included in major Ngaruwanajirri exhibitions since 1996, including Pupini Yinkiti Arimuwu Kapi Winga, Good Food, Sea Food, an ArtBack Nets Travelling Exhibition, 2000 - 2004.

Ken Wayne has a keen interest in Australian rules football, due to the success of his father David Kantilla, a South Australian player in the 1960s. His extreme patience is reflected in the painstakingly careful geometry of his paintings. He is regularly shown in the annual Darwin Ngaruwanajirri Exhibition at the time of the Darwin Festival and in Tarnathi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, Art Gallery of South Australia.

Ken Wayne's artwork is characterized by his exceptional skill of painting straight lines by hand. These lines create a rippled rhythm within his paintings often accentuated by depictions of daily Tiwi life including animals and cultural objects. Although his lines are robotically precise, the slight irregularity in his initial drawing reveals the unaided touch of his work.

Ken's unique style is enhanced by his exclusive use of natural Tiwi ochres. His meticulous attention to detail and unwavering dedication to his craft has earned him a well-deserved reputation as a skilled and respected artist in the community. Ken's artwork has been showcased in galleries and exhibitions across Australia