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PEDRO DENNIS WONAEAMIRRI

OTHER NAMES: Pedro Gurrumaiyuwa
BORN: 22.07.1974
REGION: Melville Island, NT
DOMICILE: Milikapiti  
AGENCY: Jilamara Arts & Crafts
COUNTRY: Goose Creek, Melville Island 
LANGUAGE: Tiwi
SKIN GROUP:  Mulipurrula (White Cockatoo)
DANCE: Jilarti (Brolga)
MEDIUMS: Natural ochres on paper, linen and bark.  Printmaking and carving.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2001 Pedro Wonaeamirri, Alcaston Gallery Melbourne
2003 Pwoja – Body Paintings, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2004 Nginingilawa Yirrajirrima Solo Exhibition (My third solo exhibition), Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2005 Nginingilawa Jilamara,, Alcaston Gallery at The Depot, Sydney
2006 Pedro Wonaeamirri, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
                                               
GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

1991 Jilamara, Alcaston House Gallery, Melbourne
1992 Ngingingawula Jilamara Kapi Purunguparri (Our Designs on Bark), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
1993 The Body Tiwi: Aboriginal Art from Melville and Bathurst Islands, The University Gallery, University of Tasmania at Launceston.
1993 Time and Tide, Adelaide Festival Centre Foyer, Adelaide, (touring)
1994 NATSIAA, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
1994-95 Art of the Tiwi, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Touring exhibition Shepparton Art Gallery, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Tandanya Adelaide.
1995 Jilamara Kapi Yurruka Manimpurrua, (Designs on Long Canvas and Pukumani Poles). Alcaston House Gallery, Melbourne.
1995 National Aboriginal Art Award MAGNT, Darwin.
1996 Tiwi People from Melville Island. Anima Gallery Adelaide
1996 Masterpieces from Milikapiti Savode Gallery,  Brisbane.
1997 First Person Plural Betty Rymer Gallery Chicago USA
1997 Old Patterns Framed Gallery Darwin N.T.
1997 Old Tiwi. Alcaston House Gallery Melbourne
1997 Small Designs - Jewellery and Paintings Savode Gallery Brisbane.
1997 Keeper of the Mimi Spirit, The October Gallery, London.
1998 Gli Aborigeni Australiani Una Storia Forty Thousand  Ani. Castello Sforenco, Milandeao Sale Viscontee, Italy.
1998 The Old and the New, Gallery Gondwana Alice Springs NT
1998 Parlini Jilamara Kapi Urruka Tarpurrlini Amintiya (Old Designs on Long Canvas and Paper) Mossenson Gallery Subiaco WA.
1998 All About Art, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
1998 ACAF6, represented by Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
1998 Spirit Country: Gantner - Myer Collection. California Palace of the Legion of Honour, San Francisco USA.
1999 Tiwi on Wood, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
1999 A Thousand Journeys, touring exhibition
1999 The Work of the Tiwi. Framed Gallery Darwin.
1999 Perspecta. New South Wales Art Gallery, Sydney
1999 Talkback – Living Here Now, Art and Politics, Australian Perspecta 1999, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
2000 Beyond the Pale, Art gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
2000 Melbourne Art Fair 2000, represented by Alcaston Gallery
2000 All About Art, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2000 This Earth for Us, Commonwealth Institute, London
2000 People in a Landscape Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
2000 Heritage Art Award, Canberra
2000 From Mythology to the Present,  Wuerzburg, Germany
2000 Mountford Bark Collection Etchings, The Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
2000 State of My Country, Hogarth Galleries Sydney
2000 Heritage Art Award, Canberra
2001 Spirituality and Australian Aboriginal Art, Madrid, Spain
2001 Jilamara, Jilamara Framed Gallery, Darwin
2001 Islands in the Sun Australian National Gallery, Canberra
2001 Island Images Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne
2001 Jilamara- New Work Redback Art Gallery, Brisbane
2001 Taykwapi Tiwi RAFT Artspace, Darwin
2002 Pumpuni Jilamara, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
2002 All About Art, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2002 Spirituality and Australian Aboriginal Art, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2002 Melbourne Art Fair, represented by Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2002 – 2006 Kiripuranji, Artbank collection international touring exhibition – South Pacific, South East Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Latin America.
2002 – 2003 People in a Landscape, Australian Print Workshop touring exhibition, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, and Turkey.
2003 Waterhole, RAFT Artspace at GRANTPIRRIE Gallery, Sydney
2003 ARCO 2003, with Alcaston Gallery, Madrid, Spain
2003 All About Art, Alcaston Gallery at Depot Gallery, Sydney
2003 Moon, one icon, many stories, Short St. Gallery and Arthouse Gallery, Sydney
2003 Chapman Gallery, Canberra
2003 Let’s Keep Our Art Strong: Recent works from the Jilamara Artists, Raft Artspace, Darwin
2004 Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA (Sorry Business Installation)
2004 Place Made: Australian Print Workshop, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
2004 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin (works on paper category)
2004 Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs
2004 National Works on Paper Awards, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington Victoria
2004 Nginingawula Tangarima (Our Country), Australian Print Workshop Gallery, Melbourne
2004 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
2004 29th Annual Shell Fremantle Print Award, Fremantle Arts Centre, WA
2004 Living Tiwi: Tiwi Awuta Yimpanguwi, Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg, Germany in association with Jilamara Arts and Crafts
2004 Milikapiti Turtiyanginari: Milikapiti Ochre, RAFT Artspace, Darwin
2004 Melbourne Art Fair, represented by Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2004 Dreamtime’s Door: Art Aborigen Australia Contemporani (1971-2004), Fundacio Caixa de Girona, Spain, touring Girona and Barcelona, September 2004 – May 2005.
2005 All About Art, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2005 Yirrarra – Kulama amintiya Pukumani, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2005  Aboriginal Vision in Contemporary Australian Art, Wright Exhibition Space, Seattle.
2005 NATSIAA, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
2005 Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
2006 Tallis Foundation National Works on Paper Award, Mornington.
2006 Yirrajirrima murrakupuni ngawurraningimarri, Tiwi Art Network, Darwin
2006 Jilamara:  new etchings from Melville Island, Northern Editions, Darwin
2006 Jilamara:  new etchings from Melville Island, Northern Editions, Alison Kelly Gallery Melbourne
2006  Jilamara Tiwi, Soma Galleries, Adelaide.
2006  Ngawila jilamara: our design, Aboriginal & Pacific Art Gallery, Sydney
2006  Ratuwati amintiya ratuwati:  Island to Island, Art Mob, Hobart
2007   Tiwi Together, Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Sydney
2007   Red, Yellow, Black, White, Raft Artspace, Darwin
2007   De Overkant / Downunder, Den Haag Sculpture 2007, The Hague, Holland
2007    Togart Contemporary Art Award, Darwin
2007    NATSIAA, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin

FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS

1996 Australia Council Fellowship, International Year of Tolerance.
2000 Young Australian of the Year, Arts Category

COLLECTIONS HELD

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Museum of Victoria, Melbourne.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney.
Commonwealth Institute, London
Artbank, Sydney
Gantner Myer Collection
Gordon & Marilyn Darling Collection, Melbourne
Levi-Kaplan Collection, Seattle, USA

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Ngingingawula Jilamara kapi purunguparri (Our Paintings on Bark) J. Bennett Gallery Monthly Magazine of the National Gallery Society of Victoria, September. 1992
  2. The Body Tiwi Aboriginal Art from Melville and Bathurst Islands catalogue. The University Gallery, University of Tasmania at Launceston 1993 
  3. Art of the Tiwi from the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, catalogue. NGV, Melbourne 1994
  4. Australian Perspecta Living Here Now: Art & Politics Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney 1999
  5. Isaacs, J. Spirit Country Hardie Grant Books, San Francisco 1999
  6. Beyond the Pale catalogue, Art Gallery of SA, Adelaide 2000
  7. James, B. Festival’s King Hit, Sydney Morning Herald, 11th March 2000
  8. Kean, J.The Diversity of Practice- Political Theatre in Beyond the Pale, Artlink issue 20 #1 2000
  9. People in  a Landscape catalogue. Australian Print Workshop Melbourne
  10. Islands in the Sun- Prints by Indigenous Artists of Australia and the Australasian Region Roger Butler & Brian Robinson  (Eds) ANG/Thames and Hudson 2001
  11. Print Projects: Research, Record, Reclaim Indigenous Cultural Material’, Imprint, Anne Virgo, Vol. 35, Number 2, Winter 2000.
  12. Kiripuranji: Contemporary Art from the Tiwi Islands, Jacki Dunn, exhibition catalogue, Artbank Sydney, 2002.
  13. Global Village – Tiwi Pukumani Poles, Broadcast 15th November 2002, SBS TV.
  14. Sunday Circle Magazine, Artist Interview, Malta, March 2004.
  15. Watson, K. Pumpuni Jilamara (Good Design), Look, Art Gallery Society of New South Wales, April, 2002.
  16. Accessing Yiribana “We have a readymade product – Just add water”, Look, Art Gallery Society of New South Wales, July, 2002
  17. Place Made: Australian Print Workshop, Roger Butler and Anne Virgo (eds), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2004.
  18. Message Stick – ABC Website( http://www.abc.net.au/message/blackarts/visual/s1138434.htm) ‘Tiwi island artist, Pedro Wonaeamirri, a profile’, Nancia Guivarra, 23rd June 2004.
  19. ‘Colour out of the islands’, Felicity Allen, The Herald Sun, July 23, 2004
  20. ‘Pedro Wonaeamirri: Celebrating Australian Tiwi culture through art’, The Circle Magazine, Malta, 2004.
  21. ‘Kiripuranji: Contemporary Art from the Tiwi Islands’, Tune In Magazine, Malta, 2004.
  22. Living Tiwi: Tiwi Awuta Yimpanguwi, Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association, 2004.
  23. Tradition Today:  Indigenous Art in Australia,  Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2004.
  24. Schwerin, M. Kayimwagakimi: The painting of Raelene Kerinauia and Pedro Wonaeamirri, Art Monthly Australia, March 2005 #177
  25. Primavera 2005:  exhibition by young Australian artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Limited, Sydney 2005.