Barkly Regional Arts
Barkly Regional Arts (BRA) was founded in 1996 as a networking and resource organisation for communities comprising sixteen language groups who live in the Barkly Region. These include Waramungu, Warlpiri, Alyawarr, Kaytetye, Warlmanpa, Wakaya, Mudburra, Wambaya,Jingili, Kudanji, Ngarnga, Bingbinga, Garrawa, Yanyuwa, Waanyi and Mara.
We’re the hub for arts in the Barkly, a region that covers an area of around 322, 717square kilometres of Australia’s Northern Territory.
The largest town in the region is Tennant Creek, approximately 1000km south of Darwin and 500km north of Alice Springs, a place where vivid blue skies form a canopy over a vast expanse of red dust. And that’s where you’ll find us. From our visual arts and music studios in the heart of Tennant Creek, we do outreach with the area’s remote communities, producing art, music and events that tell the stories of the Barkly.
We collaborate with remote Indigenous communities to foster access, development and recognition of arts in the Barkly.
Art made here celebrates and preserves ancient cultures and languages. It brings the community together, fosters social and spiritual fulfilment and provides employment and income.
Courtesy of Barkly Regional Arts
Artworks
Artist Profile/s
Dayleen Kamara Miller
Daylene grew up and attended school at Ali Curung. Daylene paints landscapes and hunting areas of her mother’s and father’s country.
Agnes Pula Rubuntja
Agnes Pula Rubuntja is an Alyawarr artist from Ampilatwatja. Agnes began her creative career painting with the Artists of Ampilatwatja with her mother and aunts before she moved to Canteen Creek and begun painting with the Artists of the Barkly. Agnes' works feature recurring images of bush medicine and bush tucker, reflecting her deep cultural knowledge and understanding of Country. Agnes comes from a prolific family of painters, including Epenarra artist Jimmy Rubuntja.
Courtesy of Barkly Regional Art
Topsy Steppa Beasley
Topsy Steppa-Beasley was born at Hatches Creek in the Davenport Ranges circa 1932, and is now one of the most senior painters living in Wutunugurra. She has been painting with the Epenarra artist collective for decades and has developed an initiative and heavily textural painting style which she uses to depict a wide range of subjects, often focusing on particular species of flora and fauna. Topys' choice of subject has had significant influence on younger members of the Epenarra artists collective, many of whom have followed her lead in using art as a vessel for multigenerational knowledge sharing.
Courtesy of Barkly Regional Arts