top of page
.png)
Canning Stock Route Plant Life
Product Details
Artwork Description:
"The Canning Stock Route runs from Halls Creek to Wiluna and passes through many homelands for our people. Sometimes it is dry and mostly orange and brown - during the big dry. But when the wet season arrives it is full of colour - all sorts of wildflowers and flowering trees such as wattle. There are clay pans and black salty water catchments that are like then ocean. There are some plants that only grow and flower and thrive in these salty areas."
- Susan Peters Wangamirr Nampitjin
Category:
Paintings (Oils & Acrylics)
Artwork Medium:
Acrylic on Canvas
120cm (h) x 90cm (w) x 3cm (d)
Artist Bio:
Susan Peters Wangamirr Nampitjin is a Walmajarri arst, which means that her country is the Tanami desert of South East Kimberley's.
Susan tells the story of her early life -
"I was born on Argyle station in 1963 near the banks of the Behn River, and I lived there with my family for four years. My family worked as jackaroos, stockmen, camp cooks, yard builders, and fencers. As time passed in 1970 the Ord river scheme came to be, and my family was trucked back to the desert. I was removed from my mother and travelled to Queensland with my father, sister, and carer mother. I am a descendant of Walmajarri and Ngar People (Yagga Yagga Way) who hold ancient stories, Waljirri (dreamtime) ceremonies, and oral history of families living around Paruku (Lake Gregory).”
When Susan was twenty-three years old, she decided to return to her ancestral home of WA and lived at Kururrungku near Halls Creek. She lived there for many years and even after returning to Queensland she continued to travel back to her ancestral home regularly with her children to spend me with family, and practice lore and culture. Susan has a deep connection and love for the bush life, observing and collecting bush tucker and bush medicines regularly. She now lives in Halls Creek permanently.
Susan creates artworks inspired by the country where her grandparents were born and grew up. She gained valuable knowledge about traditional lore, culture, and bush medicines from her grandparents, sisters and family members. Susan continues learning about her grandfather's and grandmother's country, ceremonies, and bush medicines.
Of her artwork she says –
“The central focus of my art practice is a personal reflection of family, Country, community, oral histories, survival, and traditional lifestyles (tradional foods, medicines). The diverse countryside, waterways, and sand hills are depicted through my use of colour, texture and mark. My artwork is both traditional and contemporary, drawing on both abstract traditions and traditional symbols, marks and mediums.”
In addition to painting, Susan also creates mixed-media work and printmaking often using other mediums such as ink on fabric, and natural bush materials, such as seeds, pandanus leaves, and the grasses traditionally used to make baskets.
Group Exhibitions:
2025 Logan Art Gallery, Logan GLD
2025 NAP Contemporary, Mildura VIC
2024 Mabo Library, Townsville QLD
2023 April Umbrella Studio Arts - Townsville QLD
Collections:
Artbank Collection Acquisition - Claypans and sandhills between Kururrungku and Lake Gregory, 2020, Ochres on hessian
National Art Gallery ACT - Jurnta (Bush Onions), 2008 - 2010, Linocut print
Awards
2021 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair - CIAF Award for Innovation
bottom of page