Artist
Betty Kuntiwa Pumani
Revered artist, traditional custodian of the significant site of Antara and respected ngangkari (traditional healer), Betty Kuntiwa Pumani is amongst Australia’s most distinctive and sophisticated painters, renowned for her breathtaking large-scale compositions and refined palette.
The daughter of the late Kunmanara Milatjari Pumani and the younger sister of the late Kunmanara Ngupulya Pumani, both renowned artists and two of the founders of Mimili Maku Arts, Pumani commenced her painting career at Mimili Maku Arts in 2007.
Renowned for her serpentine large-scale compositions in vibrant reds, intense cobalt blues and tonal fields of cream and white, Pumani’s extraordinary rise in the Australian contemporary art world has been well recognised following her successive wins of both the 2015 and 2016 General Painting Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards at the Museum Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; winning the Wynne Prize, presented by the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney in 2017; and being awarded the prestigious $50,000 Len Fox Painting Award at Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria in 2019.
In 2021, Pumani was invited to present a major commission for the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney, as part of The National 2021: New Australian Art.
Pumani's works feature in numerous important collections and major institutions including the Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands; Artbank, Australia; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria; Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra; Kaplan and Levi Collection, Seattle, USA and private collections.
Pumani’s work is currently on exhibition in The Power of Colour at the Bendigo Art Gallery, and she will present her seventh solo exhibition with Alcaston Gallery in June 2024.
© The Artist, Mimili Maku and Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne 2024
For an extended CV, please contact Alcaston Gallery at art@alcastongallery.com.au
