Sarah Brown AM is renowned CEO of Purple House and a celebrated Mparntwe (Alice Springs) artist.

Sarah Brown’s landscape paintings express the love of country that she has dedicated her life to. The dramatic desert skies, rich shades of red earth and pop of spinifex is meticulously rendered in vivid colour.

Painting is a distraction for Sarah, a balm, done after hours and weekends after a busy working day. She has invested three decades of her life to remote area nursing and community-led healthcare for Indigenous Australians. Her advocacy for Purple House the Indigenous-owned dialysis service is famous and has been awarded an Order of Australia.

Northern Territory advocate and artist Chips Mackinolty acclaims “In between kids and kidneys, she is also a great painter”.

Sarah Brown has been painting for over two decades, she has held 15 solo shows including in Alice Springs, Darwin, Canberra, Sydney and Singapore and participated in many group exhibitions throughout Australia.

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“ I was born in Paramita near Indulkana in the bush, and was given my name at Todd Morden station. As a boy I was grown up by my sister in the nearby station Amuroona, then as a young man in Mimili. I spent much of my working life as a stockman in the northern lands of South Australia before returning to my father’s country, Uluru. I was strong from hard work on horses, but my brother Cassidy was quicker. Mostly we looked after cattle, and sometimes camels. Had to be careful as they were mean…bite you.”

As a well-known traditional owner of Uluru, Reggie took part in the official handback by the Australian Federal Government in 1985. He worked as a ranger in the jointly managed Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park before becoming a tour guide with Anangu Tours.

He has taught countless visitors his ancestral lore and is a leading elder in Mutitjulu community and senior singer for ceremony at Uluru.

“I feel proud to teach young ones about Country, my Tjukurpa, our learning stories, about family ancestors, how to find waterholes and best tucker. Show them the right way, connection to culture how my father taught me long time ago. I now live at old people’s (aged care) in Mutitjulu, where I paint Wati Ngintaka (Perentie Lizard Man).”

- Reggie Uluru

Courtesy of Walkatjara Art Uluru 2023

Cynthia Burke was born in Alice Springs and grew up in the central desert of Western Australia. She has been a youth and media worker for many years and hosts a weekly radio programme for Radio NGm. Cynthia is an internationally exhibited painter with Warakurna Artists and also works with Tjanpi Desert Weavers. She is one of Maruku’s foremost up and coming wood carvers, and in 2014 became one of its youngest directors. She carries on the traditions of the Tjukurpa, the Law and way of life governing her country.

Esmerelda Kulitja is the daughter of well known artist Rene Kulitja and granddaughter of renowned wood carvers Topsy Tjulyata and Walter Pukutiwara. As a school student with Nyangatjatjara Aboriginal College she painted with Walkatjara Art and did her first painting for Maruku in February, 2007. Esmerelda grew up in the Mutitjulu Community in the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park where her family was strongly involved in traditional land management, tourism and the arts. More recently she has been living in her father’s country at Docker River.

Rene grew up in Ernabella and Amata in the north of South Australia before marrying and moving to Docker River and later Mutitjulu. Her parents Walter Pukutiwara and Topsy Tjulyata, were acclaimed wood carvers and founders of Maruku Arts. Rene is a member of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park Board of Joint Management, the NPY Women’s Council Executive, and the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir. Rene was also a founding director of Walkatjara Art and a current director and previous chair of Maruku. Rene spends much of her time travelling as both artist and advocate for her people.

‘This is Petermann Range near Kaltukatjara – that’s Docker River [Community]. Puta Puta, Tjunti, Muliati. This is my father’s Country’.

Carbiene’s father was Snowy McDonald. He, like many other Pintupi-Pitjantjatjara people eventually moved east and north to refuges such as the Lutheran Mission at Ernabella, and Areyonga, during difficult drought times about 60-70 years ago. Some even ended up in Papunya once it opened as a Government Reserve in the early 1960s, as was the case of Carbiene's father.

The shapes Carbiene paints represent an abstracted form of a series of important waterholes through the Petermann Ranges. Some of these sacred places now also have small Family Outstations or Homelands established nearby. For example, Tjunti is the name of a family outstation named for a soakage where the Hull River cuts through the Petermann Ranges. This is where Lasseter took refuge during his ill-fated expedition in search of gold. The cave he was found in near Tjunti is called Kuḻpi Tjuntinya (now commonly called Lasseter's Cave in English).

The Petermann Ranges have now been designated an area of Conservation significance and the government work closely with local families in managing the area.

Carbiene is a Papunya Tjupi artist, having joined Papunya Tjupi Art Centre in 2018 and launching his career along with a cohort of emerging young male artists. Papunya is 250km West of Alice Springs, and when Carbiene visits Alice Springs he paints with Tangentyere Artists. Tangentyere Artists and Papunya Tjupi have a good working relationship, with several artists from each art centre coming from the same families. Tangentyere Artists’ figurative painter Betty Conway is Carbiene’s Aunty and Carbiene stops at Betty’s when in town.

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Courtesy of Tangentyere Artists