Andrew Tjupurrula Highfold / Dry Desert Creekbed (AH02)

Andrew Tjupurrula Highfold is a Kokatha and Pitjantjatjara artist, born in South Australia in 1958 and raised in Adelaide. A member of the Stolen Generation, Andrew was adopted and raised away from his Aboriginal family. In his early twenties he began reconnecting with his traditional family, culture and heritage, a journey that would later become an important influence on his art.

Andrew has achieved recognition across a number of fields throughout his life. He worked for 11 years as an ambulance officer and was the first Indigenous ambulance officer in South Australia, and possibly the first in Australia. He later worked with the Royal Adelaide Medical School, helping to build connections between Indigenous medical students and the broader medical profession. Andrew also completed a Bachelor of Arts in 2006.

In 2010 Andrew moved with his family to Alice Springs, where he was able to strengthen relationships with his extended Aboriginal family and spend more time learning about Country and culture. He began painting around 2012, encouraged and taught by members of his family, including his sisters-in-law who were experienced artists.

Andrew describes his work as contemporary art with traditional input. Rather than painting a personal Dreaming or Storyline, his paintings explore Country and subjects he has been given permission to depict through his family and cultural connections.

Creekbeds, rockholes, waterholes and the changing desert landscape are recurring themes in Andrew’s work. Many of his paintings reflect the dramatic contrast between the dry season and the arrival of rain, when water once again moves through creek systems, replenishes rockholes and brings new growth across the Country.

Working predominantly in acrylic on canvas, Andrew has developed a distinctive style characterised by intricate dotting, strong areas of colour and an aerial perspective of the landscape. Using a very fine painting stick, he builds dense layers of dots and patterns that give his paintings texture, movement and depth.

For Andrew, painting has also become an important part of his continuing connection with family and culture. Through his art he is able to express his relationship with Country while passing that connection and knowledge on to his children and grandchildren.

In Dry Desert Creekbed, Andrew Tjupurrula Highfold depicts the network of creekbeds that wind through the desert landscape of Central Australia. During the long dry season these waterways may remain without flowing water for extended periods, their courses still clearly marking the Country and revealing where water travels when the rains eventually return. Creekbeds and water places are recurring subjects in Andrew’s paintings of family Country.

Seen from an aerial perspective, broad areas of warm red and orange trace the dry creek system as it branches and moves across the landscape. Andrew surrounds these forms with layers of fine dotting and small clusters of colour, creating the sense of vegetation and changing terrain along the creek margins. The detailed surface reflects the way Andrew observes Country not as a static landscape, but as a place continually responding to periods of dryness and rain.