Soul of the outback

Samuel Namunjdja walks into the gallery barefoot, bearing two paintings on bark; abstract works in ochre of lines and dots representing stories from Aboriginal mythology.

He is one of the gallery’s rising stars. Namunjdja’s paintings hang in galleries and private collections on four continents. Recently, he travelled to Bahrain where some of his works were on display at La Fontaine Centre of Contemporary Art.

It was his first trip to the [Persian] Gulf and I ask him his impressions. “No trees,” he replies, breaking into a wide smile. Namunjdja lives with his extended family deep in Arnhem Land, a territory of northern Australia returned to its Aboriginal owners in the 1970s. The closest city, Darwin, is 600km away and inaccessible by road during the wet season.

The nearest shop takes an hour to reach by car, but Namunjdja says he rarely needs to buy provisions. Mostly, he lives off the land, hunting turtle, kangaroo and magpie goose.  Read Article

By Alana Rosenbaum