Biography

Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson was born in the desert between Balgo W.A. and Tanami Downs N.T. c. 1930. He is Pintupi/Walpiri, his country is Rilyi-rilyi and his Dreamings are Kartna (Women), Janmarda (Bush Onion) and Wintiki. As part of the Donald Kahn Collection his work has toured Europe and exhibited in Miami U.S.A. Ronnie currently lives in Katherine with his family.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1992        ‘Ronnie Jakammara Lawson” The Mornington Peninsula Regional Art Centre Vic.
    
1992        ‘Ronnie Jakammara Lawson Recent Paintings” Lyttleton Gallery,    Melbourne

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1993        ‘Raka” Ina Potter Gallery, University of Melbourne, Melbourne

1993        ‘Walpiri Men’s Painting from Lajamanu’ National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

1992        ‘Australian Aboriginal Art from the Collection of Donald Kahn’ Touring Exhibition
 
1992        Miami, U.S.A. Florida Lowe Art Museum

1992        Salsburg, Austria, Museum Carolino Augusteum

1993        Berlin, Germany, Old Nazareth Church in Wedding

1993        Tel Aviv, Israel, Museum of Art

1993        Budapest, Hungary Museum of Ethnology

1992        ‘Collecting Art: Critics’ Choice’ Macquarie Galleries, Sydney

1992        ‘Audette: Lawson: Waller – New Paintings’ Lyttleton Gallery, Melbourne

1991        ‘Third World and Beyond – An International Confrontation of Contemporary Artists’, Galleria Civica D’Arte Contemporanea, Sicily, Italy

1991        ‘Ronnie Lawson Jakamarra and Louisa Lawson Napaltjarri’, Deutscher Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne

1989        ‘Mythscapes: Aboriginal Art of the Desert’, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
 
REPRESENTED    
National Gallery of Victoria
Private Collections: U.S.A., U.K., Italy, Australia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lance Bennett, ‘Aboriginal Participation: Ground painting made by 12 members of the Walpiri Tribe’ Central Australian Foundation, 1983
‘Australian Aboriginal Art from the Collection of Donald Kahn’ Lowe Art Museum University of Florida, Miami.1991
‘Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson’ Lyttleton Gallery, Melbourne 1992
‘RAKA 1993 Ruth Adeney Koori Award’ University of Melbourne, Melbourne
‘Tanami Desert Painter: Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson’  Brian Buckley, La Trobe Library Journal, Vol 13 No. 50, 1992

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT RONNIE JAKAMARRA LAWSON IN THE LA TROBE JOURNAL ONLINE

My name is Ronnie Jakamarra Lawson.
I now live at Lajamanu N.T. I been here for about twelve years now.
I don’t know how old I am, I was born in the bush, there were no white fellas there – that’s the problem – nobody knows how old.

I remember when I was a big boy in that second world war, all the planes flying overhead – I am probably about sixty, I don’t know I never went to much school.

I been born in the desert, a long way between Balgo W.A. and Tanami Downs N.T. I was born in the middle. My parents took me to Tanami Town area. I grew up here, in the bush, away from the white fellas.
When I was a little bit older my father told me all that story, paintings and the ceremonies, public ones not secret. I don’t get the stories from my mother only my father.

I am a man now – I take paintings from my father and my Dreamings for my father and for myself – my Dreamings.

You see I get these Dreamings from Father. I get Bush Bean, Bush Onion and Water Dreamings. They all come from W.A. from my Father. Sometimes I do another one, you know, that Winturke: Little Bird, this Dreaming comes from my Grandfather. My most important Dreaming is the Bush Onion – it has special ceremony, it’s not a public one, it’s a secret one.
We not telling these people, or these people, it’s a family Dreaming.
My Dreaming is my painting. I can only do paintings from the Jakamarra and Jupurrula, that’s the right skin.
If other men take these paintings or my ceremony there’ll be big trouble.
They’re my Dreamings from my Father, the same way I can’t use anyone else’s Dreamings or ceremonies.

I’ve had painting exhibitions, we had a big one in Perth. People from all over the world buy my paintings.
My paintings are important, we not take those paintings as fun, that’s our business. Blackfella Law really important that’s why we paint. They tell my life, my story, my family story, they keep that story alive. That story will not finish – my son will take him, my daughter can’t take him, only my son.

Transcribed from taped telephone conversation with Ronnie.

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