Gertie Huddleston

Gertie Huddleston ( 1916/1933–2013) was a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist who worked in the Ngukurr community.

Early life and influences Gertie Huddleston's date of birth is uncertain, and estimates range from 1916 to 1933. She was born and raised at the Roper River Mission, now the Ngukurr community, an Anglican mission in Southern Arnhem Land. Her Warndarrang and Mara heritage stems from her father, while her Ngandi and Yugul heritage stems from her mother. Her upbringing at the mission, along with her parents' beliefs, influenced Huddleston's Christian faith, and her work addressed both her faith and her roots in Aboriginal culture. Her time spent at the mission enlarged her knowledge of gardening and caring for the landscape, and she spoke highly of her time spent working on the mission gardens with her family. Describing one of the panels in this piece, Huddleston noted that "...me and my sisters and my brothers and my daddy and mummy. We were travelling all over when we were small... St. Vidgeon area. Like that's our country. Big waterhole there. I was thinking about that too you know when I was drawing that. We have the cave, caves where dead people died inside the cave. They bin reckon big snake went there and burnt them... and left only the bones". Thus, Huddleston's work incorporates themes of landscape and country, family history and ancestral past, and memory and imagination. Additionally, she includes Christianity as a recurring motif in her paintings. Sometimes it is through obvious title references, as in the case of her 1999 piece Garden of Eden II. Ahw noted the abundance of trees and bushes in reference to biblical significance of her landscape. The layered bush gardens within her works give expression to syncretic belief systems. In one interview in which she described the Myall lookout, she stated: "there are lots of different trees and bushes around this area. Ghost gums, cycads, palms and many others. Lots of different plants and a lotta bush tucker. Winter-time, after rain. I am a Christian and this painting reminds me of the Garden of Eden - like in the Bible". Huddleston's newfound art techniques were modernist in comparison to other Aboriginal artists. Her use of colours and choice to complement her nature-based paintings with metaphorical storytelling elements, made her paintings extremely pleasing to Western viewers.

In 1987, under the guidance of the Northern Territory Open College of TAFE, the Ngukurr Arts Centre began using acrylic paint on canvas as major medium. According to Janet McKenzie's review of Colour Country: Art from the Roper River, "The introduced materials provided an essential catalyst for an outpouring of imagery, for the development of dynamic and innovative works." Her work explores the intersection of natural and artificial colours and landscapes. She began her artistic career with embroidered work that she learned from the mission and sold through the mission shop in Sydney, which heavily influenced her later painting style. Her use of embroidery imagery and technique "links the celebration of female work with the Women's Movement and the reappraisal of marginalised individuals and cultures against the hegemony of Western art".

Her work Different Landscapes around Ngukurr was selected for the 14th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 1997, and her work Garden of Eden II would win the General Painting Prize at the 1999 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA).

Collections Flinders University Art Museum National Gallery of Australia National Gallery of Victoria Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

Main exhibitions 1997: Ngundungunya: Art For Everyone. National Gallery of Victoria, Southbank, Australia. 2000: Adelaide Biennale: Beyond the Pale. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. 2006: Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC and The Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH. 2009-2010: Colour Country: Art from the Roper River. Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Wagga Wagga, NSW; Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide; Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra; Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.