Willie Weston

Oneness - Willie Weston's Lisa Waup Collection

Introducing the latest artist to join the Autex Acoustics x Willie Weston collection, Lisa Waup. Lisa is a mixed-cultural First Nations artist and curator from Narrm (Melbourne). With a deep connection to the symbolic power of materials, her work reflects her personal experiences, family history, country, and broader historical narratives. Oneness represents the many aspects of self, centred around identity and belonging, and translates to a state of being unified or whole, comprising two or more parts.

Renewed - Willie Weston's Lisa Waup Collection

Through her practice, Lisa Waup weaves together threads of lost history, ancestral relationships, motherhood, and the passage of time, culminating in contemporary expressions that speak to her past, present, and future. She has exhibited extensively and is held in public and private collections across Australia and internationally. Renewed represents the rains after the dryness of summer and how the rain runs away from country after being baked for weeks by intense heat with little respite.

Durrmu (KK) - Willie Weston’s Durrmu Collection

Born and educated at the Daly River Mission, Kathleen Korda now lives at Peppimenarti (NT) where her mother and grandmother taught her to weave baskets, string bags and fish nets. She received a Highly Commended Award in the Togart Art Awards in 2013. Durrmu (KK) represents traditional body painting designs applied to male and female faces and torsos for ceremonial dance. The dots are referred to as durrmu - which also means painting.

Syaw (Fish Net) - Willie Weston’s Durrmu Collection

Annunciata Nunuk Wilson of Peppimenarti (NT) was born c. 1970, the eldest daughter of the esteemed artist Regina Pilawuk Wilson. Annunciata paints durrmu (dot body painting) and has recently been experimenting with sun mat, basket stitch and merrepen leaf designs. Syaw (Fish Net) evokes nets traditionally woven with pinbin (bush vine) by the women and men of Peppimenarti to capture fish and crayfish from fresh water creeks and rivers.

Sugarbag Dreaming - Willie Weston’s Ampilatwatja Collection

Rosie Ngwarraye Ross (1951-2023) was born near Amaroo Station, Northern Territory. Rosie depicted the bush medicine plants and wild flowers from around her country near Ampilatwatja. She had a bold expressive style and often omitted the sky from her compositions, combining both aerial and frontal views. Sugarbag is a name used for both the honey made by the native bees and also for the sweet nectar that comes from the big yellow flowers of the ‘tarrkarr’ trees.

Jilamara - Willie Weston’s Tiwi Collection

Tiwi artist Jean Baptiste Apuatimi (1940-2013) is internationally acclaimed as a painter, carver and printmaker. Her work is held in public and private collections all over the world, including the British Museum (UK), Seattle Museum of Art (USA) and National Museum of Women in the Arts (USA). Jilamara is a Tiwi word that refers to the ochre patterning traditionally painted on the bodies of dancers and on carved poles during Pukumani ceremonies. Jilamara is unique to Tiwi Islanders.

Native Seeds- Willie Weston’s Ampilatwatja Collection

Jean Ngwarraye Long was born in 1963 and has lived in Ampilatwatja (NT) all her life. She has exhibited at ArtKelch, Germany (2015), Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne (2018), Suzanne O’Connell Gallery, Brisbane (2018), and was also a finalist in the 40th Alice Art Prize, Alice Springs, (2018). Native Seeds represents the process of harvesting edible seeds from trees in the Ampilatwatja region. The seeds are used to create a dough, similar to damper which is cooked on hot coals.

Pandanus - Willie Weston’s Tiwi Collection

Osmond Kantilla (b. 1966) is a master screen printer from the Tiwi Islands. His country is Wurruranku and his skin group is Marntimapila (Stone). His work is held in numerous collections, including the National Museum of Australia, the Powerhouse Museum and the Art Gallery of South Australia. Pandanus represents the pointy leaves of the pandanus plant. Osmond Kantilla created this design in memory of his father.

Wak Wak - Willie Weston’s Bábbarra Collection

Susan Marawarr (b. 1967) is a printmaker, sculptor, weaver and bark painter from Maningrida (NT). She has exhibited at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne (2011), and Suzanne O’Connell Gallery, Brisbane (2018). Her work is in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Gallery of Australia. Wak Wak features rarrk (cross-hatching) and refers to the crow totem ancestor, Djimarr. Today Djimarr exists as a submerged rock at the bottom of Kurrurldul Creek, south of Maningrida.

Water Levels - Willie Weston’s Fitzroy Crossing Collection

Lee-Anne Williams, from Fitzroy Crossing (WA), is of the Bunuba and Wangkatjunka lanuage groups. She began her career painting boab nuts, moving onto screen and lino printing on textiles before becoming a founding member of the 2017 Design Within Country fashion project. Water Levels references the marks that remain on the rocks of the Fitzroy River, after flood water levels rise and fall.