Nationality Australian Role Artist Name Shirley Purdie | Known for Painting | |
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Born 1948 ( 1948 ) Mabel Downs station, Kimberley region, Western Australia Awards 2007 Blake Prize for Religious Art | ||
Notable work Stations of the Cross Similar Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie, Paddy Bedford | ||
Shirley speaks for Joonba
Shirley Purdie is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist, notable for winning the 2007 Blake Prize for Religious Art. Purdie was born at Gilburn, or Mabel Downs Station, in Western Australia's Kimberley region in 1948, and is a painter at Warmun Community.
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Life
Purdie was born at Gilburn, or Mabel Downs Station, in Western Australia's Kimberley region in 1948, daughter of Madigan Thomas. She moved to Warmun, not far from her birthplace, where she lives and paints. She is married to artist Gordon Barney.
Art
Purdie was taught by her mother and by major Kimberley Indigenous artist Queenie McKenzie, two women who were among the first to paint ar Warmun in the early 1980s.
Purdie has won several awards, including the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 2007, for her work Stations of the Cross. This work was washed off the walls of the Warmun Art Centre in the catastrophic floods of March 2007 and when later recovered from beside the creek it was found to have been seriously damaged. The work portrays the Christian iconography of the 14 Stations of the Cross, but also the history of conflict and racial violence in the artist's community in the 1920s and 1930s. Purdie's works are held by major galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia, which has her 1996 lithograph, Giwiwan - Bow River Country. This print shows the influence of the painting style of major artist Rover Thomas.