Yaritji Young

Yaritji Young (born c. 1956) is a Pitjantjatjara woman artist from Pukatja, a community within the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands and she now lives at Rocket Bore; a homeland north of Amata. Young is a significant Australian Aboriginal artist and senior law women who is to committed to fostering law and culture and this forms a core part of her artistic practice. Most of Young's paintings are drawn from the Tjala (Honey Ant) Dreaming.

Young often works with her sisters and their collaborative artworks, in which they are known as 'The Ken Sisters Collaborative', receiving international attention and winning major awards.

Life and painting

Young's parents are Mick Wikilyire and Paniny Mick and she was born in the bush, near a creek, at Pukatja. Little is known of her early life but she attended school in Amata and, it was here, that she first learnt to make baskets, her earliest form of textile work.

In late 2000 Young began painting at Tjala Arts (then known as Minymaku Arts) and her work in this medium is primarily drawn from the Tjala (Honey Ant) Dreaming but also incorporates Inma and Tjukurpa Dreaming. Of her paintings young says:

Young also works with her sisters; Freda Brady, Maringka Tunkin, Sandra Ken and Tjungkara Ken and, together, they form the Ken Sisters also known as the Ken Family Collaborative. In this collaborative the sisters paint together, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes consecutively, on a grounded canvas and, together, they focus on familiar and familial subjects that they share as their birthright.