Biography

MABEL JULI (WIRINGGOON)

Skin: Nyawurru
Language: Gija
Born: Five Mile, Moola Boola, c1931, grew up
Springvale Station
Lives: Warmun Community (Turkey Creek) W.A.

Mabel Juli is a senior artist at Warmun Community (Turkey Creek) in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. She was born in the bush at Five Mile Creek, near Moola Boola Station (south of Warmun), and was taken as a baby to Springvale Station, her mother’s country. Mabel started work on the station as a little girl, and as a young woman moved to Bedford Downs and Bow River stations for work.
Mabel is a strong Law and Culture woman and an important ceremonial singer and dancer. She started painting in the 1980s at the same time as Warmun artists Queenie McKenzie and Madigan Thomas. The women used to watch Rover Thomas paint and one day he said to them “you try yourself you might make good painting yourself”. Mabel says “I started thinking about my country, I give it a try”.
Mabel is a dedicated, innovative artist who continues to work in natural earth pigments on canvas. She primarily paints the Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) stories of her country Darrajayn (also spelt Tarrajayan), which is covered largely by Springvale Station.
Group Exhibitions:

1994 “Maintaining Family Tradition”, International year of the Family Conference, Adelaide Festival Centre, SA
1999 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC
1999 Desert Designs – Japingka Gallery, Freemantle, Perth, WA
‘Bush Garden’ Exhibition
1999 Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin, NT
1999 “Spirits from an Empty Land”, Riverside Studios, London
1999 East Kimberley Art Awards, Kununurra, WA
1999 Hale School Annual Art Exhibition, Perth WA
1999 Hogarth Galleries, Paddington, Sydney, NSW
1999 Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA
2000 Kunst Der Aborigines, Galerie Baehr, Dromagen, Germany
2000 Kunst Der Aborigines, Galerie Baehr, Leverkusen, Germany
2000 Anthropological Museum, Freiburg, Germany
2000 “The Collection”, Galerie Australis, Adelaide, SA
2000 Ben Grady Gallery, Canberra, ACT
2000 Bett Gallery Hobart, TAS
2000 Chrysalis Publishing, Melbourne VIC
Collections:

Edith Cowan University Art Collection, Perth, WA
Kerry Stokes Collection
Berndt museum of Anthropology, University of WA, Perth
Northern Territory university Collection
Private Collections

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