Rosie Tarku King 'Wind Blowing', acrylic on canvas, 120 x 120 cm
The Sulman Prize is awarded by the Art Gallery of New South Wales for the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project by an Australian artist. Established within the terms of Sir John Sulman’s bequest, the prize was first awarded in 1936. Each year the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW invite a guest artist to judge this open competition. In 2022 Joan Ross judged the prize and selected Rosie Tarku King as a finalist.
This exhibition was displayed from 14 May – 28 August 2022.
Rosie Tarku King’s paintings narrate her long life spent traversing the Great Sandy Desert. With a colour drenched palette the artist depicts the jila (living waterhole), jilji (sand hills) and jumu (soakwater waterhole) she grew up visiting. She speak Juwaliny, Walmajarri, Kriol and English.
This painting is all about the wind that blows tossing the flowers to and fro in the desert.
Rosie Tarku King currently paints in the studio space at Mangkaja Arts located in the centre of Fitzroy Crossing, a small town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. Now in her late eighties her memory has significantly declined, for the artist painting is a sensory experience that encourages her to reconnect with Country.
28 August 2022
