Epenarra Artists

Three hours South-East of Tennant Creek lies the remote Wutunugurra  community, whose artists work from a Barkly Regional Arts serviced art centre. Susie Peterson, Rita Beasley, Julie Peterson, Jessie Beasley, Annette Nungala and Mary Peterson share a visual language characterised by meticulous combinations of fine dots that form detailed landscapes. The artists often depict their experience of country in works featuring motifs of bush tucker and bush medicines. Using a relatively consistent pallet of green, pink, blue, brown and orange - essentially Earth Colours - Susie Peterson and Jessie Beasley employ intricate dot work in realisations of country, that blur the line between traditional dot painting (which is abstract in nature) and figurative landscape.

 These works employ a visual language shared by artists working in the relatively close community of Ali Currung, which lies further South of Tennant Creek. Other artists such as Julie Peterson, Annette Nungala and Jessie Peterson skilfully combine this visual language with elements of cartoon-like figurative work, thus adopting elements of a naïve style commonly seen in the work of Tennant Creek’s Tartukula artists. Stylistically, these works combine the language of both the Epenarra and Tartukula artistic communities, rendering their work not just distinctive but also strongly indicative of the Barkly region.