Tali Ngura Wiru – Beautiful Sandhill Country

A leading voice within the dynamic school of contemporary painters at Iwantja Arts – co-founded in the 1980s by her late mother, revered artist and advocate Kunmanara (Sadie) Singer – Trisha Singer’s solo show commences while her joint exhibition with PRISCILLA SINGER – her sister and fellow luminary of Iwantja Arts – continues its run at Michael Reid Sydney.

Our Berrima and Eora/Sydney galleries’ concurrent presentations of the Singer Sisters’ new suite of paintings – titled ‘Tali Ngura Wiru – Beautiful Sandhill Country’ as a tribute to the rocky desert country of Indulkana, where Iwantja is sited – celebrate the cross-generational sharing of cultural knowledge, stories and practices grounded in Country and kinship that is the animating force in their art-making.

“I’ve been making art since I was a young girl,” says Singer, whose work channels the vivid desert reds and earth tones of Yankunytjatjara Country through sweeping gestures crested by meandering, sand-coloured striations. “You can see sandhills in the colours I use… desert colours, with dusty reds and oranges.”

Singer’s practice honours personal and cultural connections to place, carrying forward stories and lessons passed down through family and community. “There’s a lot of my mum in my work – what she liked and what she taught me,” says the artist. “I like looking at different flowers and going on Country, getting the knowledge of the land and the story passed on from grandparents … When you travel, you see the changes in the land. It comes alive.”

Singer previously presented her work at Michael Reid Southern Highlands alongside her sister and other Iwantja peers in the group exhibition ‘Ngura Pilunpa – Peaceful Country’. With her practice now being celebrated in Sydney, we are thrilled to welcome her back to Berrima for the Southern Highlands contingent of ‘Tali Ngura Wiru’.