Meet the artist: Kirsty Burgu
Kirsty Burgu is the youngest daughter of Roger Burgu (dec), a well-known Ngarinyin elder and painter. Kirsty was born at Mowanjum near Derby in the West Kimberley of Western Australia, where she has lived most of her life, except for time spent in study. She is a deep-thinking artist who endeavours to pass-on a message through her work.
Kirsty remains engaged in the traditional stories told to her by her mother and father, and Uncle Jeffrey Burgu as a child.
Kirsty says: "I really like painting. Painting is how I share all the stories I've been told with the young ones. I remember when I was small, the electricity would go off early. We would fall asleep around the fire, we didn't have TV for entertainment. My dad would say: 'come I'" tell you story now,' so me and my brother would go and sit in his arms and listen until we fell asleep. The paintings I do now have the stories that Dad Mob told me. There are so many stories and they all have so much to teach us about life."
Kirsty is one of a new generation of painters at Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre who interpret the old stories in new ways.
Mowanjum Wandjina culture is a living culture and Kirsty uses a wide range of traditional and contemporary materials including ochre on bark, ochre and acrylic on canvas, ink on paper, and woodcut, lino, and silkscreen printing.