Art Gallery of New South Wales

Untitled 2023
Untitled 2023
Untitled 2023
acrylic on canvas

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain with generous assistance from the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
Courtesy the artist and Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland

White Bay Power Station

Untitled 2023
Untitled 2023
acrylic on canvas

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain with generous assistance from the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
Courtesy the artist and Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Untitled 2023
synthetic polymer paint on canvas

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain with generous assistance from the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
Courtesy the artist and Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland

Chau Chak Wing Museum

Untitled 2023
acrylic on canvas

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain with generous assistance from the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
Courtesy the artist and Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland

UNSW Galleries

Untitled 2023
acrylic on canvas

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain with generous assistance from the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
Courtesy the artist and Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland

Untitled (camel) 2020
acrylic on canvas

Courtesy the artist and Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland

Artspace

Untitled 2023
acrylic on canvas

Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain with generous assistance from the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body
Courtesy the artist and Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland

On the edge of the Sandy Desert, in the Pilbara region, is the community of Jigalong. In 1907, Jigalong housed workmen building the rabbit-proof fence; in the 1930s cameleers bred their animals on its red soil; in 1947 it was transformed into a Christian Mission on behalf of the Apostolic Church, and in 1971, three years before the land would be returned to its rightful owners, Jigalong welcomed the birth of Doreen Chapman.

Born deaf and non-verbal, the Manyjilyjarra artist has painted alongside her mother, senior Martumili artist May Wokka Chapman, since she was a girl. In vibrant colours Chapman creates her work at pace, rendering scenes of native flora and fauna as well as images of contemporary Indigenous life, here an ATM. Continuing to travel between communities across the Pilbara, Chapman’s craft is crucial to her ability to communicate and share the stories which have shaped herself and her community.

Doreen Chapman was born in Jigalong and has spent her life moving between Western Desert communities in the Pilbara, Western Australia. She is a Manyjilyjarra artist and has spent the majority of her adult life in Warralong, a community 120km south-east of Port Hedland. Chapman started painting with her mother, Maywokka May Chapman, and she first exhibited with Martumili artists in 2010.  In recent years she has spent more time in Port Hedland and began painting at the Spinifex Hill Studios. As a deaf woman, painting is a crucial medium of communication and storytelling for Chapman. 

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.