Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty | 'Fire On The Reefs, 2024' | 76x122cm

Code: HMCG0299

Artist: Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty

Title: Fire On The Reefs

Area: Bulgul, NT

Community: Batjamal

Medium: Acrylic On Linen

Size: 76x122cm

Year: 2024

Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty paints the coast and waterways around Bulgul, where the Daly River meets the sea on its way to Darwin. Her Reef paintings follow the tidal country she now calls home, the reefs and shallows exposed and swallowed by the tide, lit by late sun or by the burning off that marks the turn of the seasons. These works carry the colour and rhythm of that meeting point between land, fire and water, built from memory and the stories of her elders about country and the seasons that shape it.

Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty is a Batjamal artist born in Tennant Creek in 1972 and raised largely at Nauiyu Nambiyu community on the Daly River. She was educated at Mount St Bernard College in Herberton, Queensland, and taught for a decade before returning to painting full time in 2003; her first solo exhibition followed in Sydney in 2006. She now lives and paints at Bulgul, on the coast between the Daly River and Darwin. Her work builds intricate fields of dots and fine brushstrokes into layered, abstracted images of her country - the seasons, bush foods, waterways and the stories passed down by her family and elders - in bright, bold colour that plays with space and form. In 2011 she was commissioned to paint the stage backdrop for Oprah Winfrey's Australian show, and she has exhibited widely in solo and group shows in Australia and overseas.