ARTIST PROFILE
Nada Rawlins
Nada was born c.1936 around Kiriwirri and her language is Wangkatjungka. She is renowned for the atmospheric abstract landscapes of her country that she paints in large areas of saturated colour. She started to paint when attending art classes at the Karriyili Adult Education Centre at Fitzroy Crossing in the mid-1980s.
Nada Rawlins has participated widely in exhibitions throughout Australia and has been collected by the National Gallery of Australia as well as State Art Gallery collections and private and corporate collections Worldwide.
Nada Says: “I was born in the desert in the bush. My mother never put me in a blanket. I never saw my father. Another father grow me up. We came from the desert along the Canning Stock Route when I was a young girl. We walked through Billiluna.
One kartiya (whiteman) called Len Brown picked us up early in the morning in a truck. He took us to Moola Bulla. I had a sore on my arm and they took me to the clinic. They gave me lots of needles. When my sore was better I lived with my family at Moola Bulla. Then we walked alongside the river to Christmas Creek.
We had no motorcar - carried everything-swag, billycan, sticks, on our heads. Three mother and old man. Elsie Thomas and I worked together – get firewood cook damper. No kids, look after old people. I been sick one. Maybe old people from here make me sick. – Long time been sick. Old man Milken, he been kill himself at Gogo Station, they tell him old man got to go - too old.”
Selected Collections
• National Gallery of Australia
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Art Gallery of Western Australia