News Archive

UWA Development and Alumni Relations, in collaboration with the UWA Berndt Museum will host a function at the Western Australian Museum in Albany on Friday 16 August. Guests will be treated to a presentation and private viewing of the UWA Berndt Museum's Jimmy Pike Artlines: You call it Desert, we used to live there exhibition.

The 52 works on paper, made between 1990 and 2000, draw on the knowledge and skills Jimmy Pike learned growing up as a hunter-gatherer in a bush camp on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert.

With his people, the Walmajarri, Jimmy Pike was one of the last to leave the desert and settle on cattle stations in the Kimberley during the 1950s. During his early boyhood he and his family walked from waterhole to waterhole and his art reflects the desert landscape, the changing seasons and Aboriginal spirituality.

Jimmy Pike's Artlines is a selection of vibrant felt-tip pen drawings, but Jimmy Pike is best known for his acrylic paintings on canvas and the internationally recognised designs he created for fashion label Desert Designs.

Jimmy Pike made the drawings in the UWA exhibition at his isolated camp near Broome.

He is one of Australia's most famous Indigenous artists and is represented in the collections of the major Australian public galleries and museums.

Ted Snell, Director, Cultural Precinct, Sandy Toussaint, Adjunct Professor, Anthropology and Sociology and Barbara Bynder, Deputy Director / Assistant Curator, Berndt Museum of Anthropology will speak about the exhibition and provide guests with added insights into the significance of the works.

Media references

Paula Phillips (UWA Albany Centre) (+61 8) 9842 0810

Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs) (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 00 700 783