16 November - 9 December 2023 Flowing arcs of dot-mark lines portray the world in patterns and rhythms on every canvas. The sun’s glare, the moon’s glow, the black of night, all depicted in ochre, the country’s own pigment lifted from the earth. Such is the art of the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin — the longest-known and most thoroughly recorded Indigenous creative tradition in Australia. The works in this exhibition showcase the artists’ individual styles in depicting shared stories. Some artists adhere closely to traditional tools, employing a wooden comb (Pwoja) to apply dots to their canvas or sculpture. Others may use sticks or western paint brushes in their mark-making. We are the Tiwi. Tiwi is we the people. […] We Tiwi people have to keep our culture alive. The art from long time ago and today - we are still seeing it as Tiwi art. […] The knowledge is when you listen, then look — the knowledge is by words, singing, talking, and also the dance, meanings of dance, and the song that goes with the dance and also art as well. And now I am creating my own art, my own style, totally different. My art is my art” Pedro Wonaeamirri - in an introductory statement to Tiwi, Art/Histroy/Culture by Jennifer Isaacs

ALISON PURUNTATAMERI Winga (Tidal Movement/Wave), 2023 80 x 150 cm Natural ochres on Belgian Linen $5,500 These works depict the tidal movement of waters in and around the seas and creeks of the Tiwi Islands. Not just influencing fishing and hunting opportunities, the movement of water carries masses of silt and sand, transforming the land and changing the coastal landscape. Winga can also be translated as 'waves', just one part of the changing tides. Tidal surges are at their most powerful when a king tide occurs during the Wet Season, especially during a full moon. Alison has a strong bond to the waters surrounding the Tiwi Islands, forged by a lifetime of memories living encircled within the tides of the Arafura Sea. ALISON PURUNTATAMERI Winga, 2023 123 x 36 cm Natural ochres on Bark $5,000 ALISON PURUNTATAMERI Winga, 2023 83 x 24.5 cm Natural ochres on Bark $2,500 ALISON PURUNTATAMERI Winga, 2023 139 x 44 cm Natural ochres on Bark $7,500 ALISON PURUNTATAMERI Winga, 2023 101 x 24 cm Natural ochres on Bark $3,000 ABOUT ALISON PURUNTATAMERI Alison was born in Pirlangimpi on Melville Island. She grew up in Pirlangimpi and went to the local school. After she completed school she worked in child care.She has one daughter, Anette Orsto known locally as Sugar Plum who is a great favourite at the art centre studio where Alison paints with her mother Paulina (Jedda) Puruntatameri, her partner James Orsto and the other artists. It was Alison’s grandfather, Justin Puruntatameri (deceased) a senior law man who told Alison she should have a go at painting. He knew all the old songs and remembered visits by the Maccassans to the Tiwi Islands when he was a boy. Alison would listen to his stories of his paintings at the art centre and on country. He used to take the family hunting when she was little. He would also take them out bush bashing in his 2 door toyota ute called Black Nose. He used to teach them how to cook wallabies, mussels lots of foods all together under the ground wrapped in paperbark. Alison started painting at Munupi Arts Centre in late 2011. Alison has been a finalist in several prestigious art awards, including the Museum of Contemporary Arts 2014 Primavera Art Award; Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (Telstra NATSIAA)2022; The Alice Prize 2022; and the Art Gallery of South Australia's 2023 Ramsay Art Awards. Alison is represented by Red Dot Fine Art Gallery. NGARUKURUWALA KAPI MURRUKUPUNI - WE SING TO THE LAND 16 November - 9 December 2023 Munupi Arts & Crafts Association is located along Melville Islands North-Western coastline at Pirlangimpi (also known as Garden Point). It is the most recently formed art centre on the Tiwi Islands. The Munupi artists, inspired by their natural lush environment and the Tiwi creation stories, are renowned for their striking approaches to colour and design. Frequently referred to as “Jilamara” (design), their artworks are created using traditional earth ochres, mixed to create a wide range of colours. “Our paintings are like our songs to country, just like when we go to country we call out and sing to our ancestor”. Carol Puruntatameri ( in discussion with Guy Allain) “Ngarukuruwala Kapi Murrukupuni, means ‘we sing to the land’. We do this to invite our ancestral elders to watch over us, and to thank them for the bush food and other traditional plants and materials that we gather and hunt for, including the ochre and bark. When we go to country, we enact Ngarikuruwala Kapi Murrukupuni so that our ancestors know that we are coming, inviting them to guide and protect us. As we leave country, we sing out to the ancestors to thank them and to let them know of our gratitude and knowledge of their presence and wisdom. Our practice of Ngarikuruwala Kapi Murrakupuni is not only transported in the materials gathered to create our bark paintings—it is also intertwined into our images and designs. This is reflected in the stories and meanings that we convey in and through our creative expressions.’’ Paulina Puruntatameri and Carol Puruntatameri ( in discussion with Dashielle Allain)

It is hard to put into words our disappointment with last week’s referendum. This shameful result reinforces the echoes of "Terra Nullius", a message that our Indigenous Peoples have heard repeated since Australia was first colonised. Instead of taking a small step toward some kind of healing, Australia has once again rubbed salt in old wounds. As saddened as we are over the No vote, we cannot come close to understanding the pain and disappointed caused to those directly affected by this result. At the end of the ‘week of silence’, we have selected the five works below; all gallery proceeds will be donated to these two charities: The Streets Movement and Tranby. Links to both indigenous owned and operated organisations providing support for First Nations people can be found below. We urge you to contribute however you can. The Streets Movement The Streets Movement is an Indigenous community development organisation which provides programs, pathways and opportunities for the disconnected, forgotten and wayward, helping them re-engage with opportunity, education and community. The Streets Movement works across three continents, building opportunity for youth through education, pathways and empowerment. All our programs and initiatives are designed to create positive pathways, build capacity and opportunity for those whom need it most. All are underpinned by the primary desire to develop strong, connected and proactive communities, with the ethos of “fighting today for a better tomorrow”. Not a fight with fists, but a fight of mentality, determination and the will to build ourselves and our communities. A fight to make a difference, by being strong forces for change and being an example of that which we wish to see in our world. Tranby Tranby is a space for Mob to gather, share stories, and gain further skills and knowledge through community programs, events and accredited training. Our campus spans past, present and future, from the historic buildings, through architect designed facilities that reflect the flow of water, to virtual training spaces. Our people have lived on the Australian continent for at least 65,000 years, and for more than 65 years, Tranby has been a place of community connection, Aboriginal-controlled education and social action for Indigenous peoples. We are Australia’s oldest independent Indigenous education provider. As an Aboriginal-led Co-operative, our community is involved in everything we do, and guides how and why we do things. Since 1957 we’ve provided life changing opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults, supporting them to find their power through education.

Everett Leven Sterneborg, 9.8.2023 With both of his parents working in the industry, (gallery owner Mirri Leven and Sam Sterneborg) Everett has been around art ever since he was born. He loves farm animals and high contrast black and white paintings. The first ever artwork to join his collection is by Cooee Art Leven favourite Conway Ginger. Thank you Emma and Hayley and thank you to Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists! Couldn’t be happier to have you with us, Everett!. CONWAY GINGER BULLDOG AND WEST COAST, 2020 21 x 29.5 cm Watercolour and Pen on Paper $330 REGION Docker River, NT Conway Ginger hails from Docker River and moved to Alice Springs in 2004. He is an active young man, who is a passionate football supporter, music lover and an eager artist. Conway’s wonderful sense of humour is evident within his artwork, fresh and vivid lines communicate his passions and inspirations that are drawn from everyday life. Showing great confidence with ink and wash, Conway’s work continues to flourish and expand with every brushstroke. It is an exciting time for Conway as an emerging artist, whose expanding body of work progresses through new techniques and artistic mediums such as watercolours, fabric, textiles and print-making. CONWAY GINGER MOTOR BIKE, 2016 17 x 23.5 cm Watercolour and Pen on Paper $260 REGION Docker River, NT KITTY NAPANANGKA SIMON MINA MINA JUKURRPA (MINA MINA DREAMING), 2023 30 x 80 cm Synthetic Polymer Paint on Belgian Linen $2,000 REGION Lajamanu, NT Mina Mina is near Lake Mackay. It's main dreaming story is the karrpanu, the digging stick, famously recorded in the Kanakurlangu clan group dreaming songline. Warlpiri call that songline, yupunju. The women travelled eastward into Anmatyerre tribe lands in the Jukurrpa, by being, the sky and earth, night and day women created or gave birth to almost everything bringing them into existence. From raining clouds, waterholes, waterways, everything was danced and sung into existence. Then everything was left to be dug up with the karrpanu so one could feed on the knowledge about everything within the Warlpiri homelands. The ultimate karrpanu is the pointer stars near the Southern Cross stars. When the pointer star touches down in the horizon then the Warlpiri learning cycle begins again.

Exhibition of National Finalists Opening Night and Prize Presentation Thursday 12th October 6pm - 8pm Exhibition Continues 12th - 22nd October 11am - 5pm Cooee Art Leven 17 Thurlow Street Redfern Cooee Art Leven Award We are proud to host and be a sponsor for the 2023 Paddington Art Prize and to announce the Cooee Art Leven Award A 2024 solo exhibition for two artists from the list of finalists with unique, yet complimentary approaches to landscape painting from Director Mirri Leven. The artists will also receive $2,500 each toward the creation of the exhibition. Weigh In We want to hear your opinion! Let us know which Paddington Art Prize Finalists you would most like to see exhibited at Cooee Art Leven's Redfern galleries. Weigh in by clicking the polling link below.

Cooee Art Leven proud to be hosting the 2023 Sydney Oceanic Art Fair Recognising our geographic location in the Pacific, this expanded Fair will appeal to a wider, more diverse range of art lovers and collectors of both historic and contemporary art from First Peoples globally. The fair will include booths displaying objects and artworks from PNG, Australia, South East Asia and many other countries. For more information go to: https://www.oceanicartsociety.org.au/event/sydney-oceanic-art-fair-2023/

The Paddington Art Prize 2023 Exhibition of National Finalists October 12 - 22, 11am - 5pm Opening Night and Prize Presentation Thursday 12th October 6pm - 8pm We are proud to host the 2023 Paddington Art Prize. The $30,000 National Acquisitive Prize is awarded annually for a painting inspired by the Australian landscape. Established in 2004 by Arts Patron, Marlene Antico OAM, this National prize takes its place among the country’s most lucrative and highly coveted painting prizes. Oceanic Art Fair Cooee Art Leven proud to be hosting the 2023 Sydney Oceanic Art Fair October 29th Recognising our geographic location in the Pacific, this expanded Fair will appeal to a wider, more diverse range of art lovers and collectors of both historic and contemporary art from First Peoples globally. The fair will include booths displaying objects and artworks from PNG, Australia, South East Asia and many other countries. Auction | Wednesday 8th November Indigenous & Oceanic Art Collection from the Rod Menzies Estate Melbourne VIP Preview 26-27 October Sydney Auction Gala 2 November 6-8pm Sydney Auction Viewing 2-8 November Auction 8 November, 7pm Ngarukuruwala Kapi Murrukupuni (we sing to the land) Barks & paintings from the Artists of Munupi 16 November - 9 December 2023 Exhibition Opening: 16 November 6-8pm WaterWays Dual solo exhibitions for artists Joanne Currie & Joshua Bonson 14 December - 13 January 2024 Exhibition Opening: 14 December 6-8pm

Our booth was furnished by our neighbours at Anibou. If you missed us at the fair, a selection of works is still available, matched here with a few elegant pieces generously loaned to us by Anibou. Konstantina (Kate Constantine) Region: Gadi/Eora Language: Gadigal Tarra, 2023 acrylic on linen, 101 x 101 cm 20621 Provenance Direct from artist, NSWCooee Art Leven, Sydney NSW Story As a saltwater woman, the place I feel most connected to on my Country is the water, specifically the Harbour. Arguably the place for me that has the most powerful engery is Tarra. Tarra is the point today known as Dawes Point, named for the gentle and kind Lieutenant Commander and Offical Astronomer in the First Fleet. He was stationed here for years, at what was considered, the outer most limit of occupation so that he could work through his telescopes without the obstruction of light from the camp. The young man befriended Patyegarang a young Gadigal woman with whom he had a close connection. It is because of this friendship that I today have been able to learn my traditional language which was long thought extinct! See Dawes and Patyegarang shared more than friendship, they shared language, and it is the small notebooks and journals that Dawes kept of this time that Professor Jaky Troy at USYD has been able breathe life back into our original Gadigal language. Visit Tarra, you will her energy and understand entirely. Simon, Kitty Napanangka Region: Lajamanu, NT Language: Warlpiri Mina Mina Jukurrpa (Mina Mina Dreaming) 2023 acrylic on linen, 85 x 50 cm Provenance Warnayaka Art, NT Cat No. 707-23 Cooee Art Leven, Sydney NSW Story Mina Mina is near Lake Mackay. It's main dreaming story is the karrpanu, the digging stick, famously recorded in the Kanakurlangu clan group dreaming songline. Warlpiri call that songline, yupunju. The women travelled eastward into Anmatyerre tribe lands in the Jukurrpa, by being, the sky and earth, night and day women created or gave birth to almost everything bringing them into existence. From raining clouds, waterholes, waterways, everything was danced and sung into existence. Then everything was left to be dug up with the karrpanu so one could feed on the knowledge about everything within the Warlpiri homelands. The ultimate karrpanu is the pointer stars near the Southern Cross stars. When the pointer star touches down in the horizon then the Warlpiri learning cycle begins again. Thomas, Rover Joolama Region: Kimberley, WA Language: Kukatja Untitled, 1993 natural earth pigments on canvas, 90 x 120 cm 20666 Provenance Waringarri, Aboriginal Arts, WA Cat No. AP 3746 Private Collection, Vic Cooee Art Leven, Sydney NSW Accompanied by a faxed copy of the original certificate of authenticity Story Rover Thomas lived a traditional bush life with his family at Well 33 until he moved, at 10 years of age, with his family to Billiluna Station, where he was initiated, after his mother's death. After working for a period as a jackeroo on the Canning Stock Route he became a fencing contractor in Wyndham and later worked as a stockman in the Northern Territory and the fringes of the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts. In his later years, he settled and began painting in the Warmun community at Turkey Creek.While Rover's artworks can generally be characterised as map-like depictions of country executed with natural earth pigments in a graphic Kimberley style, they generally carry historic and social connotations.

DR CHRISTIAN THOMPSON AO was born 1978 in Gawler, South Australia. He is a Bidjara man with Irish & Chinese ancestry. In 2010, Thompson made history when he became the first Aboriginal Australian to be admitted into the University of Oxford in its 900-year history. He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy (Fine Art), Trinity College, University of Oxford, UK; a Master of Theatre, Amsterdam School of Arts, Das Arts, The Netherlands; a Master of Fine Art (Sculpture) and Honours (Sculpture), both RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia; and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. In 2015, he was mentored by performance artist Marina Abramovic. Thompson has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, having been included in exhibitions such as ‘Australia’ at the Royal Academy for the Arts, London; ‘We Bury Our Own’, The Pitt Rivers Museum; 'SOLOS', Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, Valencia Institute of Modern Art, Valencia, Spain; ‘The Other and Me’, The Sharjah Museum, United Arab Emirates, ‘Hijacked III’; QUOD Gallery, Derby, United Kingdom; ‘Shadow life’ Bangkok Art and Cultural centre, Bangkok, Thailand; and ‘The Beauty of Distance/ Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age’, 17th Biennale of Sydney. In 2018 he was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the visual arts as a sculptor, photographer, video and performance artist, and as a role model for young Indigenous artists.

From: Art Daily 29 June 2023 SYDNEY.- Australia’s oldest Indigenous gallery Cooee Art today announces that it will relaunch as Art Leven, ushering in a new era for the gallery under the stewardship of long-term owner and Director Mirri Leven. Although the gallery will remain focused on First Nations art, in this new chapter as Art Leven, the gallery will exhibit non-Indigenous alongside First Nations artists, through specially curated individual projects. The new gallery vision will focus on transparent dialogue, offering an opportunity beyond the ordinary commercial relationship between artist and gallery, fostering an environment of openness and direct exchanges between artists. Art Leven will work directly with First Nations curators, art centres, and represented artists. Art Leven will unveil its inaugural exhibition in line with this new programming focus on Thursday 27 July 2023 within its bespoke gallery space, located in Gadial Country, Sydney Redfern. Curated by Gadigal artist Kate Constantine (Konstantina), the exhibition features work created in the Northern Territory Warlpiri community of Lajamanu, organically exploring themes around the craft of landscape painting and ways of seeing and translating land and Country.

Inspired | Artists from the Kimberley Region Few areas in Australia, if any, have an artistic history reaching further back than the Western Kimberley. Here, the artistic tradition stems from rock painting, mostly of the deeply important Wandjina Deity, which still forms the basis of contemporary imagery, now painted mostly on bark and canvas. Some Wandjina cave paintings date as far back as 40,000 years. There are few things more deeply rooted in this continent. The artists still use the very marrow of their land - natural earth pigments (ochres) - dug from the soil to relate their Country on canvas. In the East Kimberley however, the artistic practice finds its roots more recently, formed around the founders of the Gija art movement, including Rover Thomas, Paddy Jaminji and Hector Jandany. Queenie McKenzie, under the urging of Rover Thomas, was the first female Kimberley artist to paint and exhibit her own works. Developed most famously by Rover Thomas, the language of landscape is unique to this area, with Country viewed neither from the birds eye perspective prominent in Central and Western Desert art, nor from the standing viewpoint employed by European landscape painters. These paintings can be restrained, using few colours to depict vast swathes of land. Yet artists often populate the landscape, as did Queenie McKenzie and Hector Jandany, both of whom populated their canvases with a mix of traditional Gija and Christian iconography. Many of Rover Thomas and Paddy Jaminji’s figurative works are built around the important Kril Kril ceremony. Many of these works, now housed in major collections, still bear the handprints from their ceremonial use. Alec O’Halloran, through his ‘inquisitiveness that slowly turned into fascination’, went from a self-proclaimed novice to a deeply engaged researcher, collector and author about Aboriginal art. He began studying and collecting art from the Kimberley in the mid 1990s. His fascination with the region led him to travel widely in the West and East Kimberley to visit communities and meet the artists to understand more deeply the imagery and meaning in their beautiful ochre works. His recent authorised biography of Pintupi artist Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, ‘The master from Marnpi’, reveals Namarari’s extraordinary life and art career and is available at Cooee. After decades teaching at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, political scientist Dr. Prof. Patricia Springborg has recently returned home to Australia. Trailing the author by sea was a large container filled with Springborg’s art collection, featuring many of Australia’s biggest names. Curated with care and precision, a prominent component of the art ark was the collection of ochre works from the Kimberley, many of which feature in this exhibition. “It was only in 2005, during a trip to Aboriginal Art Centres in Arnhemland and the Kimberleys, that I began collecting, which quickly became a passion. It was a great privilege for me to be able to hang these beautiful art objects, which are in fact far more than just art objects, and part of this continent’s historical record, on my walls in Berlin for 10 years, where they attracted a lot of interest. I am proud to say that I collected works by some of the founders of the Arnhemland and Kimberly art movements, and that my collection includes the very same artists whose works hang in the Australian indigenous section of the famous Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, which has perhaps the most extensive Aboriginal collection in Europe and has played a major part in the movement’s appreciation overseas.”