Eddie Blitner / Brolga Dreaming (EB716)

Edward (Eddie) Blitner was born in Katherine, Northern Territory, in 1961. His bush name is Taiita. In the early years he lived at Ngukurr Community on the Roper River in the Northern Territory. Later he attended school at Concordia College in Adelaide until the age of sixteen. When he returned to the north as a young man he worked as a stockman and general hand on Victoria River Downs. He was at the Gurrinji walkout when he was a youth, and mixed with all of the language groups who populate the northern country from Roper River to Kununurra.

Eddie commenced painting when he was seven – from a very early age, he used to watch his grandfathers, Fred, Gerry and Donald, and the other Elders who taught him to blend ochre, apply the paint, carve, and passed on to him the stories of the work they were doing. Other members of his clan (Barbil) taught him how to make flint spear heads, traditional hunting boomerangs and most importantly how to hunt, fish, find bush tucker and make bush medicine to survive.

Now a high profile contemporary artist, Eddie frequently works with children and young men, teaching them all his skills. He travels widely and is always willing to impart his knowledge. He has devoted many hours helping underprivileged children to learn what his Elders taught him.

Eddie is from Naiyalrindji country on the Roper River, 270 km south-east of Katherine in the Northern Territory.  It is now called the Yugul Mangl Community. Many good painters have emerged from that community and are represented in most major Australian and overseas galleries. His family are renowned artists and carvers. He is a great didgeridoo maker and his fine large bird carvings (some standing two meters high) are breathtaking.

Eddie paints the mimi rock spirit figures of his country, always with an accompanying story/theme and very often incorporating totems, bush tucker, animals in X-Ray style, men’s hunting/fishing and corroboree themes.  He is meticulous in method and fastidious in style.

AWARDS
• Australian Aids Magazine “Blue Bell”
• First Prize, Barunga Aboriginal Cultural Festival

INTERVIEWS
• Four Corners interview for world-wide release (1999) – in-depth interview re Aboriginal Art and Artefacts.

EXHIBITIONS
• Telstra Aboriginal Art Awards, Darwin, N.T.
• Spirits of the Dreaming, Darling Harbour Cultural Centre. Promoted by the “Today Show”, Sydney
• Love Magic Exhibition, Katherine Art Gallery, held at the Sydney Trust, N.S.W. 2000

The Dreamtime relates to the period when the earth was just being formed, and Ancestral Beings walked among Aborigines, teaching them law and ceremony and the discipline which was to rule their lives.

They could change their shape and become different creatures including water goanna, crocodile, kangaroo, brolga, owl and many types of fish, or metamorphose into rocks, hills or other natural phenomena. All of these creatures are subjects of song and dance cycles in the mardayin ceremony.