Peggy Griffiths / Keep River Country

Peggy was born 1941 on Newry Station in the far north-west of the Northern Territory. She is a senior law and culture woman. Peggy’s father, Frank Moore, worked as a stockman on the cattle station.  She then relocated with her mother Dianah Dingil to Ivanhoe Station in the East Kimberley (Western Australia), and attended school until the age of 15. Old Argyle Station was her next home, when she married Alan Griffiths, a stockman and drover and now an Internationally renowned artist.

Peggy commenced carving artefacts in 1985, and soon after progressed to painting with the first art centre in the region, Waringarri Arts, where she is now a senior artist and former Chairperson.  Peggy is also a member of the Executive Committee of The Association of Northern, Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists (ANKAAA). A primary function of the ANKAAA charter is to protect the rights of artists and promote ethical business practice in the Indigenous art industry.

Peggy’s paintings are delicate in colour and style and meticulously executed.  She uses natural ochre pigments with immaculate fine brushwork to depict her Traditional country.  Peggy’s quote – “That’s the spirit, still alive in my country. I paint this country because I know it and because I want other people to know this is my country.”

Her list of collections and exhibitions is impressive – Peggy was the first Indigenous artist to win the Fremantle Print Award in 1995. In November 2008, six very large works by Peggy were showcased in the prestigious “West Meets East” exhibition in Perth, Western Australia.  The paintings depicted her traditional country in the Keep River National Park area, on the border of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.  At the opening, one piece was immediately acquired by Parliament House Collection, Canberra.

In 2014 Peggy was the overall winner of one of WA’s most prestigious art awards, the Kimberley Art Prize.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2010
•    Sharing Difference on Common Ground, CCAE, Darwin

2009
•    Sharing Difference on Common Ground, Holmes A Court Gallery, Perth
•    Best of the Best, Framed Gallery, Darwin
•    Alan & Peggy Griffiths, Short Street Gallery, Broome

2008
•    West Meets East, Peggy Griffiths Solo Exhibition, Seva Frangos Art, Perth
•    Kimberley Ink, Northern Editions, Darwin
•    Celebration, Seva Frangos Art, Perth
•    Kimberley Ink and Ochre, Wollongong University

2005
•    Dreaming the Spinifex, Seva Frangos Art at Span Galleries, Melbourne
•    When Waringarri Came to Town, Woolloongabba Art Gallery, Brisbane
•    Kimberley Focus – Alan and Peggy Griffiths, Perth International Arts Festival, Perth,

2003
•    Art of the East Kimberley, Short St. Gallery, Broome

2002
•    Kimberley Ochre, Darwin
•    Short on Size, Short St. Gallery, Broome
•    Heyson Prize, Adelaide
•    Love Your Work – 30 year Exhibition, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth
•    Warrgebarenkoo, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth
•    Cossack Art Awards, Cossack, WA

2001
•    Groundwork, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth
•    Past Modern, Short St. Gallery at Australia Square, Sydney

2000
•    Greenhill Galleries, Perth
•    Redback Art, Brisbane
•    National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of NT, Darwin
•    High on Art, Melbourne
•    Cowara House, Cowaramup, WA

1999
•    National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of NT, Darwin
•    East Kimberley Art Awards, Kununurra

1997
•    East Kimberley Art Awards, Kununurra

1996
•    Fremantle Art Centre, Fremantle

1995
•    Fremantle Print Award, Fremantle

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
•    National Gallery of Australia
•    Parliament House Collection, Canberra
•    Art Gallery of Western Australia
•    Edith Cowan University Collection, Perth
•    Royal Perth Hospital Collection, Perth
•    Northern Territory University Collection, Darwin
•    Fremantle Art Centre Collection, Fremantle
•    Kerry Stokes Collection
•    Artbank Australia
•    University Of Technology Collection, Sydney

Jinamoom is the area of the Keep River as it flows through the gorge. During the wet season it is joined by lots of little floodwater creeks and the open country becomes marshy. There are lots of new grasses and spinifex growing and you can see the spirit of country as it moves across the land with the wind in the grasses.