Charlene Carrington / Purnululu (19276)

Charlene Carrington was born in Perth in 1977 and grew up at Turkey Creek in the East Kimberley. A third-generation Gija ochre artist from one of the region’s most significant painting families, Charlene was surrounded from an early age by artists, Country and cultural knowledge. She is the daughter of respected East Kimberley ochre artists Churchill Cann and Sade Carrington, and her artistic family also includes her grandfathers Hector Jandany and Beerbee Mungnari, and her grandmother Betty Carrington.

Charlene began painting at an early age, with her grandfather Hector Jandany playing a particularly important role in her development as an artist. While she was at school, Hector and Queenie McKenzie taught younger generations Ngarrangkarni stories and traditional painting methods. Charlene later recalled sitting with senior artists, particularly Hector and Jack Britten, watching them paint and learning their techniques. Her father Churchill Cann was another important mentor, and she grew up surrounded by leading East Kimberley ochre painters including Rover Thomas and George Mung Mung.

Texas Downs Station Country is central to Charlene’s work. Her paintings often depict its waterholes, springs, hills and distinctive geological formations, together with Ngarrangkarni stories passed to her through her family, particularly her grandmother Betty Carrington and grandfather Hector Jandany. Charlene has spoken of her enjoyment of family camping trips back to Texas Downs, and this deep personal connection to Country continues to provide an important source of inspiration for her work.

Her connection to Hector Jandany and their shared Country has also been recognised through two important exhibitions with RAFT Artspace. In 2006 Charlene exhibited alongside her grandfather in Ngarrgooroon Country in Darwin, one of Hector’s final exhibitions before his passing that year. Fourteen years later, their work was brought together again in the 2020 exhibition TEXAS in Alice Springs, reflecting the continuing importance of Texas Downs and Ngarrgooroon Country across generations of their family.

Charlene paints with the natural earth pigments for which East Kimberley ochre painting is renowned. She has also continued to use traditional natural binders, including garliwan, prepared from bloodwood sap and used to bind and seal ochre pigments. This method connects her practice with techniques used by earlier generations of Gija ochre artists before commercial binders became widely available.

Her earlier paintings reflected some of the flowing linework and meticulous approach associated with her mother, Sade. As Charlene’s work developed, the broad movement, swirling forms and rich blending of ochre seen in the work of her father, Churchill Cann, also became more apparent. Drawing on these influences, she has developed a distinctive style of her own while continuing to paint the Country and Ngarrangkarni of her Gija heritage.

In 2020 Charlene was selected as a finalist in the Archibald Prize with My dad, Churchill Cann, an intimate portrait of her father painted in natural ochre and pigments. The work was subsequently acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Her work is also represented in major institutional collections including the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Macquarie University Art Collection.

Charlene continues an important East Kimberley tradition of Gija ochre painting while bringing her own interpretation to Country, family history and cultural knowledge. Her daughter April Nulgit is also an artist, continuing a remarkable artistic lineage through Betty Carrington, Sade Carrington and Charlene into a fourth generation.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

• Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW
• Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
• Macquarie University Art Collection, Sydney, NSW
• Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA
• Artbank
• Robert & Janice Hunter Collection, Coffs Harbour, NSW
• Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Subiaco, WA
• Warmun Art Centre Collection, Warmun, WA
• WA Museum Boola Bardip, Perth, WA, collaborative work Warnarral Ngoorrngoorrool
• Federal Court Collection, Adelaide, SA
• District Court of Western Australia Collection, Perth, WA

SELECTED AWARDS

• 2020 Finalist, Archibald Prize, My dad, Churchill Cann, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW
• 2019 Finalist, Midwest Art Prize, Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, Geraldton, WA
• 2002 Selected representative, ABC Loud Youth Arts Festival
• 1999 Special Commendation, East Kimberley Art Award, Kununurra, WA

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• 2020 TEXAS, with Hector Jandany, RAFT Artspace, Alice Springs, NT
• 2006 Ngarrgooroon Country, with Hector Jandany, RAFT Artspace, Darwin, NT
• 2004 Charlene Carrington, Span Galleries in conjunction with Seva Frangos, Melbourne, VIC
• 2002 Charlene Carrington, Kintolai Gallery in conjunction with the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Adelaide, SA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2024 Femme-maison: Imagined Boundaries – Women Artists from the Collection and Beyond, Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW
• 2023 Three Journeys, WA Museum Boola Bardip, Perth, WA
• 2023 Ochre Painters of the Kimberley, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA
• 2022 From Here, for Now, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW
• 2022 Ngamu & Kilyingem: Old and New – Artworks from Gija Women, Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA
• 2021 Three Generations of Gija Artists: Betty Carrington, Sade Carrington & Charlene Carrington, Nancy Sever Gallery, Canberra, ACT
• 2020 Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW
• 2019 Midwest Art Prize, Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, Geraldton, WA
• 2019 Desert River Sea: Portraits of the Kimberley, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
• 2019 Beyond the Surface of the Dreaming: Warmun & Jirrawun, Aboriginal Signature Estrangin Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
• 2015 Garnkiny: Constellations of Meaning, Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA
• 2014 Garnkiny: Constellations of Meaning, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
• 2010 Etched in the Sun: Prints by Indigenous Australians, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
• 2009 Etched in the Sun, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London, UK
• 2008 Etched in the Sun: Prints by Indigenous Australians in Collaboration with Basil Hall and Printers 1997-2007, Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT
• 2007 All Around Texas Downs, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA
• 2005 22nd Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT
• 2004 Die Inneren und die Äusseren Dinge, Stadtgalerie Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany
• 2004 The Next Generation: Balgo & Warmun, Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne, VIC
• 2003 Ochre Works by Six Warmun Artists, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, NT
• 2002 Garmerrun: All Our Country, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA
• 1999 East Kimberley Art Awards, Kununurra, WA
• 1995 Kids of Warmun, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, Adelaide, SA
• 1994 Maintaining Family Tradition, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, SA

Purnululu, widely known as the Bungle Bungles, is one of the most breathtaking and culturally rich landscapes in the East Kimberley. This World Heritage-listed area is famous for its unique beehive-shaped domes, formed over 350 million years ago and banded with striking layers of orange and black sandstone.

For the artists who paint this Country, Purnululu holds deep cultural and personal meaning. Their connection to this land stretches back through time beyond measure, and continues today through stories, song, and painting.

The artworks capture Purnululu in all its changing moods – from soft pinks at sunrise to the deep reds of the hot season, golden yellows and dusty browns in the dry, blackened rock during storm time, and lush greens after the first rains. The colours shift constantly with the weather, light, and season.

As the artists say, “it’s just like magic – you can paint the same place at a different time of the day or year, and it never looks the same.”

Each painting is not just a depiction of the landscape, but a reflection of the artists’ enduring relationship with this remarkable place.