Warmun Art Centre is located 200 km south of Kunumurra in Western Australia. It was established in 1998 by founding members of the contemporary painting movement in Warmun who recognised the need for a community owned and controlled centre through which they could support, maintain and promote Gija art, language and culture. The centre is owned and governed by Gija people with 100% of income returning to the community.
Warmun artists are renowned for their use of natural ochre and pigments on canvas to represent traditional Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) stories and contemporary life.
Warmun art has a national and international reputation thanks to the leadership of highly successful elder Warmun artists like Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie, George Mung Mung and Paddy Jaminji.
Now internationally renowned painters Lena Nyadbi, Patrick Mung Mung, Mabel Juli, Shirley Purdie, Madigan Thomas, Gordon Barney, Phyllis Thomas, Churchill Cann and Betty Carrington lead the way for a group of more than sixty emerging and younger artists currently painting for the art centre.
This new generation of Warmun artists works with the same, time-honoured materials and stories. The emerging works display a fresh, original and vibrant style that transcends cultural boundaries and places many Warmun artists at the forefront of contemporary art in Australia.
Their work is exhibited and held in important collections internationally and locally in the country’s flagship art institutions such as the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia and National Gallery of Victoria as well as the country’s top commercial galleries.
