Vincent Namatjira and Kamurin Young are two of the “youngfellas” who belong to one of the most remote artistic collectives on earth, spanning a vast proportion of central Australia, larger than many European countries.
Their studios are in the heart of the lands of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people – APY country – which stretch from the Stuart highway to South Australia’s border with Western Australia and as far into the Northern Territory as Uluru, a five-hour drive away.
Young, 24, spent a year in the Australian army as a cadet, stationed in Darwin. “I travelled all over Australia,” he says. “But I decided to leave because I wanted to be home, looking after my own country, not fighting someone else’s war.”
Namatjira’s connection with the subject of Indigenous warfare is more recent. In 2016, the Australian War Memorial approached a group of senior APY artists to produce a collective painting recognising their “defence of country”.
For Namatjira, 34, one of the younger artists to make the trip to the capital, discussions with the memorial’s curators opened his eyes to the lack of historical recognition of Indigenous servicemen and women.
“A lot of young Aboriginal men fought for this county, travelled overseas and never came home. Even those who did weren’t treated with dignity and respect in Australia at the time. Their stories remain hidden, camouflaged in history.”
Some of that long-forgotten legacy is addressed in a ground-breaking exhibition that opens in Sydney on Sunday, Armistice Day.
Weapons for the Soldier takes its name from the works of the late Kunmanara Ken, a former stockman who was one of the first male elders (tjilpies) to start painting in 2003, and habitually used that title.
Many fellow tjilpies – Alec Baker, Peter Mungkuri and the late Kunmanara Pompey – provided original works. However, the exhibition was inspired by the “youngfellas” such as Namatjira, Young and Young’s cousin, Anwar Young, also 24.
Spears figure frequently in Ken’s work, and in the exhibition.
Take Kulata Tjuta – Wati kulunya tjukurpa (translated as “Many spears – Young fella story”).
Three artists are credited. Frank Young, 69, is a long-standing advocate of Anangu land rights and a founder-member of the region’s cultural revival. Anwar Young is his younger relative and an emerging multimedia artist, while Unrupa Rhonda Dick is an award-winning photographer.
Their collective work shows a young Anangu man “imprisoned” by a cell of hand-made spears.
“Too many young men from remote communities get into trouble and are locked in juvenile detention centres,” their artistic statement reads. “The whitefella way of locking people up isn’t working. These young men should be brought back to Country, working with elders to help look after their families and communities.”
Frank Young is old enough to remember his elders talking about the tribal wars before the European invasion reached this remote part of central Australia. “I saw Anangu fight Anangu in the wars for Country,” he says. “This was before we really knew about the white man’s world.”
The exhibition deals with many stages of conflict. There are the tribal wars before European settlement; the “frontier wars” as Europeans pushed inland; the sacrifice made by Aboriginal Australians in two world wars, only to continue to be shunned when they returned home. And more recently, the political and legal battles to protect the land their ancestors occupied up to 60,000 years ago.
Spears and shields feature prominently not only because they are weapons of war, but also because they address the main point of the exhibition: defence of Country.
“Weapons for the Soldier is an examination of the themes of warfare, weaponry and connection to Country,” says Carrie Kibbler, the curator of the Hazelhurst Arts Centre, which is hosting the exhibition. “Importantly, the exhibition makes connections between the work of the APY men and the work of other artists across Australia.”
Yet the spears and shields have another purpose, far removed from warfare.
Learning how to make a spear is a traditional bond between generations. It involves a child going out to the bush with their father or grandfather and being taught how to kill a kangaroo.
The youngfellas invited 15 Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists from outside APY country to contribute to the exhibition, including high-profile names such as Ben Quilty, George Gittoes and Shaun Gladwell.
But perhaps the most striking image is Australia’s Most Wanted Armed with a Paintbrush, a collaboration between Tony Albert, 38 – the award-winning Queensland-based Indigenous artist known for his fascination with kitsch, tourist-focused “Aboriginalia” – and Namatjira.
“Placing Vincent in the iconic Kelly helmet inverts our colonial past,” Albert says. “The helmet is decorated with patches and badges from my collection of Aboriginalia. They speak to the idea of a united front.”
Weapons for the Soldier: Protecting Country, Culture and Family is at Hazelhurst Arts Centre in Gymea until 3 February