Uruna Tjina (James Range), Northern Territory

Born in Ntaria (Hermannsburg) in 1914, Otto Pareroultja began painting after a surge in interest in the watercolour medium in the late 1930s.

A richly vibrant work, Uruna Tjina draws on Pareroultja’s innate ancestral knowledge to reveal and express the artist’s spiritual connection to Country. The work favours bright and earthy tones, with the elevated ranges in the painting rendered in rich browns, while vivid royal-blue peaks in the distance provide contrast. The base of the yellow central mount captures the brilliant light across the valley, simultaneously creating a sense of depth and distance.

In the foreground sits a large gum tree, its trunk patterned with olive-green and brown tones, further accentuating the vastness of the terrain. The swirling serpent-like bands on the trunk perhaps recall the artist’s ancestral totem, the snake. The expressive brushstrokes imbue the painting with dynamism and energy. In this painting, the ancestral past and the present merge. Uruna Tjina showcases not only the artist’s distinctive style but places Pareroultja as one of the most significant artists working in Ntaria in the 1940s and onwards.

Gloria Strzelecki, Associate Curator of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art