Andrew Tjupurrula Highfold / Kapi Piti (Waterholes) (AH06)

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 Kapi Piti, Andrew Tjupurrula Highfold depicts the important water places found across the desert landscape. Waterholes and rockholes are a recurring subject in his work and are closely connected with his paintings of family Country on the APY Lands. These places were important centres of life, providing water for people and animals and becoming particularly significant when rain replenished the Country.

Andrew uses sweeping areas of blue and turquoise to suggest water and the surrounding landscape, while intricate fields of dots create movement and texture across the surface. Bands of warmer colour and clusters of pink and purple appear around the water places, suggesting the vegetation and renewed growth that can follow rain. His paintings record the remarkable transformation of desert Country as water returns and the landscape comes back into bloom.