Mapping Country

Red dust hums beneath the wheels,
three towers pierce the sunlit ranges
as we journey through Ntaripe.

The landscapes captured by Charles Jangala Inkamala evoke a deeply resonant experience – one reminiscent of the winding drive through Mparntwe (Alice Springs), west along Larapinta Drive to Ntaria (Hermannsburg), or along the Tanimi Road to Warumpi (Papunya). From the three towers atop Ntaripe (Heavitree Gap), to the town centre, the ranges, gorges and more, these familiar locations are not simply backdrops for Inkamala’s work. They are the pulse of his artistic practice, infused with history, culture and his connection to Country. An Arrernte and Western Arrernte man, Inkamala’s practice is inseparable from his bond to the desert and his kin. Inkamala’s knowledge of Country is not simply a physical association, but a deeper, lived connection which informs his paintings and ceramics.

Inkamala has been a member of Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists since 2017. The art centre brings together creators based in Mparntwe, but from a diverse range of language groups. It was established in 2000, a decade after Alyawarr man Billy Benn Perrurle started painting on offcuts of timber and metal through the Bindi Enterprises workshop. Founded in 1978, Bindi Enterprises provided employment and community engagement opportunities for people living with a disability. Their ethos of valuing difference was carried through to the organisation’s new venture – supporting Indigenous people in the arts.

By the early 2000s, a dedicated studio space was established under the name Mwerre Anthurre Art, meaning ‘beautiful art’ or ‘art made the proper way’. What began with a small group of artists – Billy Benn Perrurle and Aileen Oliver Ampetyane amongst them – quickly grew. By 2003, over six regular artists worked from the studio, and today the collective remains one of the most vibrant in Central Australia. Artists of all ages, genders, practices and level of experience share this space. Each has access to materials, mentorship and a creative community that fosters experimentation with new mediums, scales and subject matter. The diversity of the collective has not diluted its impact; rather, it has propelled the art centre to national and international acclaim. The artists demonstrate that there is no single way to represent Country or mob’s connection to it.

Within this dynamic environment, Charles Jangala Inkamala has become one of Bindi’s most compelling artists. Prior to joining the studio, he worked with graphite, coloured pencil, markers and ball point pen. Since 2017, he has developed a proficiency with acrylic on canvas, establishing a distinctive practice anchored in landscape painting. Inkamala’s first solo exhibition, From Mparntwe to my Father’s and Grandmother’s Country, was held at the Araluen Art Centre in Mparntwe in late 2022. Lines of Country – West Hermannsburg to Papunya, presented at Vivien Anderson Gallery, marks his second solo exhibition.

Lines of Country – West Hermannsburg to Papunya includes a vibrant selection of paintings and ceramics. Inkamala’s use of acrylic presents his signature perspective, combining aerial and frontal views. This hybrid lens invites viewers into the landscapes, collapsing distance so that ridgelines, creek beds and roads appear simultaneously expansive and intimate. Carefully rendered signifiers – such as the radio towers on top of Ntaripe or the deep canyon of Rungutjirpa (Simpsons Gap) – effectively anchor these paintings to real places that viewers can recognise or come to know. Further, Inkamala’s palette – particularly his use of rich blues – introduces animation and rhythm to scenes depicting Mparntwe, Ntaria, Warumpi, Rwetyepme (Mount Sonder) and Yapalpe (Glen Helen Gorge). Each painting is an encounter with a specific site, yet collectively the exhibition succeeds in forming a large map of cultural continuity and lived experience.

Since 2022, Inkamala has introduced ceramics into his practice. His shift towards clay aligns with a broader resurgence in ceramic work across desert art centres, where artists are rediscovering or newly embracing the medium. This interest was energised in part by Apmere Mparntwe, the 16th Australian Ceremics Triennale held in 2022. The following year, the Arlpwe Art and Culture Centre in Alekarenge (Ali Curung) revived its ceramics studio. Centres including Tangentyere, Purple House and Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Arts followed suit, introducing clay as a new form of storytelling.

For Inkamala, whose paintings already exhibit a strong sense of structural balance and contour, ceramics offer a new way to explore form in three dimensions. The tactility of clay resonates with the physicality of the landscape, while the sinuous lines and layered surfaces allude to the many other layers of Country. In the exhibition, the ceramic works Hermannsburg and House in Hermannsburg demonstrate this beautifully. While these pieces are more intimate in scale than the canvases around them, their compact form draw viewers closer, inviting a slow, more tactile engagement that echoes the hands-on relationship between artist, material and place.

Lines of Country – West Hermannsburg to Papunya would have benefitted from a greater presence of such capivating ceramics, to more evenly balance the number of paintings on display. Nonetheless, the exhibition remains a compelling and thoughtfully curated selection of works that successfully convey the artist’s practice across media. Presented in an interstate gallery context, the exhibition effectively relocates the desert landscapes into a new setting, inviting audiences perhaps unfamiliar with these places to engage with their cultural and geographic significance.

The future for Charles Jangala Inkamala is, in many ways, as open as the landscapes he paints. His willingness to experiment – whether in colour, composition, or medium – signals an artist who is in constant evolution. As he moves between canvas and clay, between memory and observation, Inkamala expands the visual language through which Country can speak. As Bindi Mwerre Anthurre Artists continues to nurture generations of artists, Inkamala stands firmly within a dynamic movement pushing art into new forms while keeping strong in its connections to community and Country.