Shorty Jangala Robertson
FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING
FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING
100% MONEYBACK GUARANTEE
100% MONEYBACK GUARANTEE
LAYBY & PAY LATER PAYMENT OPTIONS
LAYBY & PAY LATER PAYMENT OPTIONS
Showing the single result
About the Artist
Artwork is accompanied by Warlukurlangu Artists (Yuendumu) Art Centre Certificate of Authenticity/Provenance
Gallery note: Shorty's artworks were painted on country (Yuendumu) when he was in his 80's and as such, there may be slight imperfections in his works. In art, imperfections can add character and authenticity, making a piece more powerful and relatable, rather than detracting from its value.
c. 1930's - 2014
Shorty Jangala Robertson was born at Jila (Chilla Well), a large soakage and claypan north west of Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community located 290kms north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. He lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle with his parents, older brother and extended Warlpiri family. They travelled vast distances across desert country, passing through Warlukurlangu, south west of Jila and Ngarlikurlangu, north of Yuendumu, visiting Jangala’s, his skin brothers.
Shorty Jangala Robertson had virtually no contact with white fellas during his youth but remembered leaving Jila for Mt Theo ‘to hide’ from being taken. His father died at Mt Theo. He moved with his mother to Mt Doreen Station, and subsequently the new settlement of Yuendumu. During World War II, the army took people from Yuendumu to the other Warlpiri settlement at Lajamanu. Shorty was taken and separated from his mother; however, she came to get him on foot and together they travelled hundreds of miles back to Chilla Well. Drought food and medical supplies forced Shorty and his family back to Yuendumu from time to time.
His working life was full of adventure and hard work for different enterprises in the Alice Springs and Yuendumu areas. He finally settled at Yuendumu in 1967 after the Australian Citizen Referendum. It is extraordinary in all his travels and jobs over his whole working life, that he escaped the burgeoning and flourishing Central Desert art movement of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Thus Shorty’s paintings are fresh, vigorous and new. His use of colour to paint and interpret his dreamings of Ngapa (Water), Watiyawarnu (Acacia), Yankirri (Emu) and Pamapardu (Flying Ant) is vital, yet upholding the Warlpiri tradition.
Shorty was well in his 70’s when he started painting. He was an active member of the Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association. His first solo exhibition at Alcaston Gallery in 2003 was met with great artistic acclaim. Since then he exhibited in many Aboriginal Art Exhibitions in Australia and overseas.
He passed away on a sunny Sunday morning in September 2014.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2016 Get Shorty!, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane
2011 Shorty Jangala Robertson, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
2007 Singing the rain, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
2006 Shorty Jangala Robertson, Coo-ee Gallery, Sydney
2005 Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs
2005 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
2004 Coo-ee, Sydney, NSW
2003 First Solo Exhibition, A November Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne
Awards and Recognition
2022 Connection | Songlines from Australia's First Peoples in a spectacular immersive experience, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
Selected Collections
Owen Wagner Collection of Australian Art at the Hood Museum of Art, Charlottesville, VA, USA
Pat Corrigan Collection, Sydney
Jacqui McPhee Collection, Perth
Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs
Artbank, Sydney
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Flinders University Art Museum, Melbourne
Gordon Darling Foundation, Canberra
Current local time at Gallery
Opening Hours
Saturday: 9:00AM - 12:00PM
Sunday: Closed
Call Us
1300 362 551 
+61 8 9168 1881
Current local time at Gallery
-
Mon - Fri: 9:00AM - 4:00PM
Opening Hours
Saturday: 9:00AM - 12:00PM
Sunday: Closed -
Call Us
1300 362 551
+61 8 9168 1881
10 Papuana St, Kununurra,
Western Australia, 6743 Australia
