Pepai Jangala Carroll—What Next

Why pay attention?

Pepai Jangala Carroll is a part of the Ernabella Arts cohort. Situated in the remote far north west of South Australia, the celebrated centre is the oldest continuously running Indigenous art centre in the country. While Carroll was raised in Haasts Bluff in the Northern Territory, his connection to both Ernabella and to his homeland is profound – and this is where his enchanted, minimalist ceramics and paintings are positioned.

In 2014, Carroll was a finalist in the Shepparton Art Museum Indigenous Ceramic Art Award. The artist was included in Magic Object: Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art in 2016, and was also a finalist in the 2016 and 2017 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. This year, Carroll had his first solo show in Europe, at Aboriginal Signature in Brussels.

What do they do?

Carroll joined the Ernabella Arts in 2009 — prior to that he worked doing various maintenance jobs, and then later as a Community Constable within the Ernabella community. Now though, he has a foot in both the painting and ceramic studios, where he produces canvases and stoneware vessels with vivid markings and energised, organic colour tones.                                                                                                                                 

What’s it about?

Carroll’s most recent ceramic and painting practice resonates in the sacred sites and dunes and trees of his birthplace – a landscape rich with history and legend; somewhere he calls his father’s Country. This year, he returned to this place – between Kintore in the Northern Territory and Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia, alongside fellow Ernabella ceramicist Derek Jungarrayi Thompson. The pair’s pilgrimage will be the inspiration for Mark and Memory, at the TARNATHI festival at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

The artist says…

“I will paint, as I have always done, my father’s Country. It is my tjukurpa, my memories, my Country.”

You can see it at…

TARNANTHI at the Art Gallery of South Australia from 13 October 2017 until 28 January 2018. His solo exhibition Ngayulu anu ngayuku mamaku ngurakutu (I went home to my father’s country) will be on show at Hugo Michell Gallery until 21 October, 2017.

This piece first appeared in Art Collector magazine, issue 82, October—December 2017. 

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