Roma created these mingkiri kutjara (two mice) recently after being inspired by the nightlife of Perth. She was visiting from her home community Wingellina in WA for the opening of the exhibition Revealed - emerging Indigenous artists from Western Australia. The blue man mingkiri is dancing and the yellow kungka mingkiri is sitting down feeling shy.
Courtesy of Tjanpi Desert Weavers
Roma Nyutjangka Butler from Irrunytju is a weaver belonging to the Pitjantjatjara language and cultural group. She was born in 1959 at Wilo rockhole, on the kanyala (euro kangaroo) tjukurpa track. Roma spent her early years at Ernabella mission in South Australia and then travelled by camel to Warburton in Western Australia, where she went to school and learnt to read and write.
Roma's career as an artist began in the late 1990s at the outstations of Kintore and Kiwirrkurra where she came under the influence of the dotted, figurative artistic style of Pintupi artists and Papunya Tula art.
tjanpi (wild harvested grasses), raffia, acrylic yarn
58 x 20 x 32 cm (each piece)
Finalist
Judges of the 2015 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize: Dr Michael Brand (Director of the Art Gallery of NSW), Penelope Seidler AM (Arts Patron and Director of Harry Seidler & Associates) and Barbara Flynn (International Curatorial Advisor).