Tarisse King & Sarrita King | 'My Country's Story Coolamon, 2021' | 108x22x11cm

Code: DDSTKSK21010A

Artist: Tarisse King & Sarrita King

Title: My Country's Story Coolamon

Area: Darwin, NT (now New Zealand) / Darwin, NT

Community: Gurindji / Waanyi

Medium: Acrylic On Canvas

Size: 108x22x11cm

Year: 2021

The "My Country's Story" works carry the King sisters' memory of growing up around Darwin, where the land itself seems to hold a record of its own seasons, waterways and journeys. Tarisse and Sarrita King translate that remembered country into surfaces marked with pattern rather than picture, each line and dot standing in for the movement of water, weather and travel across the land their father, William King Jungala, also painted. The coolamon form carries this story in a traditional vessel shape, turning a functional object of carrying and gathering into a surface for Country itself.

Tarisse King is the elder sister of Sarrita King and daughter of the late William King Jungala. Born in Adelaide in 1986, she grew up in Darwin surrounded by the raw landscapes that fuel her art. She moved to Adelaide at 16 to begin painting, combining traditional Aboriginal techniques with her own contemporary vision. Now living in New Zealand as a mother of five, she feels the strongest connection between past and future — her art illustrating ancient culture with contemporary hopefulness.