Betty Kuntiwa Pumani: maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after)

Bundanon Art Museum curates the first major museum survey of celebrated artist Betty Kuntiwa Pumani.

Driving into the imposing landscape of Bundanon’s arts precinct, visitors are immediately enveloped in the environment. Dramatic cliffs abound and a serpentine river that features so impactfully in the works of the benefactor of the site, artist Arthur Boyd, frame the landscape. In this world, visitors drift between the sublime natural view that embraces them, and the ambitious curatorial program that awaits. In the local Dharawal language the word Bundanon means deep valley. Boyd’s vision for Bundanon was that it would be a site that inspired and engaged viewers with art and the landscape. It is in this deep valley that an extraordinary and overdue exhibition has opened. 

maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after) represents the first major museum survey of storied Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands artist Betty Kuntiwa Pumani. It is an exhibition situated firmly in the artist’s APY homelands of what is also known as northwestern South Australia and in her mother’s Country of Antara near Mimili and the art centre of Mimili Maku where the artist practices. Curator and Bundanon CEO Rachel Kent first collaborated with Pumani on a large-scale commission for the biennial exhibition the National in her former role as head curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney. The resulting work, Antara, 2020 frames the Bundanon exhibition. It is an imposing and joyous celebration of Country, ten metres in length and with key elements of Pumani’s most well-known palette of off white, red and blue. In an essay for the upcoming monograph of the exhibition, Kent gives voice to the centrality of this work in Pumani’s practice describing it as “a culmination of her expression of family, Country and interconnection. She describes her painting Antara as both a portrait of country and of the generations of women who have passed vital cultural and environmental knowledge down for future generations.”

Familial bonds echo throughout the presentation with the inclusion of works by the artist’s mother, Kunmanara (Milatjari) Pumani and sister, Kunmanara (Ngupulya) Pumani and a collaborative work with the artist’s daughter Marina Warari Pumani Brown. The works depict country and the matrilineal story of the Maku Tjukurpa—the Witchetty Grub Songline. Pumani describes this opportunity to reflect the sharing of these stories across generations:

“I’m thrilled to see my older paintings and my newer paintings together. To show together with my extended family—my older sister, my mother, my daughter. Generations of women painting the stories of our Country. I’m proud to show these works together at Bundanon Art Museum—proud to bring our family forward through this exhibition and to honour our Tjukurpa. It is a special thing to be able to do. And for this exhibition, I painted one more canvas for the next generation. I was thinking about the women who came before me, and those who will come after me. This is for future generations, for those children to learn from.”

Significantly this exhibition has also heralded the launch of art centre Mimili Maku’s living archive collection, a cultural and philanthropic initiative to establish a living collection to preserve Anangu culture entitled Alpiri Kuwari. The art centre is named after its location in Mimili and the song line of the Maku. The exhibition features a three-panel commission entitled Antara, 2025. Mimili Maku art centre manager Anna Wattler notes that “Betty actually painted her Bundanon commission surrounded by works from the collection, including foundational pieces by her late mother and sister.” This relationship in extended in Kent’s exhibition with the Alpiri Kuwari collection works on display in the wider showing. This exhibition represents the first time these works have been shown outside of community. An enduring generational legacy situated in song lines and Country.

The exhibition is paired elegantly with Melbourne based artist David Sequeira’s The Shape of Music in an adjoining gallery. The exhibitions are complimentary and abound with colour and an ethereal mediative quality.

Specially commissioned video works allow visitors context into the extraordinary Country near Antara which beautifully illustrate the landscape and its colours. The exhibitions are imaginatively activated by an ongoing series of public programs that link landscape to the work. Pumani’s Bundanon survey is expanded by a new monographic publication with interpretative essays and interviews in Pitjantjatjara language by the artist.

Pumani and Sequeira’s exhibitions hold much for visitors and unlock worlds equally a part of what is now known as Australia as major cities and this sublime valley to the south of Sydney. The galleries and Pumani’s works change throughout the day as the light from the skylights flood the gallery. Visitors hear language and the sounds of Pumani’s lands as they drift through the space. The impact is meaningful. These exhibitions represent an offering to slow down and contemplate Country and our place in it. To look at the challenges we face collectively. Visitors who give in to this generous and overwhelming offering will leave fulfilled and rewarded. The promise of Boyd’s legacy for this place. Restored and focused on a shared future where the environment and those who inhabit it begin to heal.

Exhibition

Betty Kuntiwa Pumani – maḻatja-maḻatja (those who come after)
28 June – 5 October 2025
Bundanon Art Museum