The late Warkartu Cory Surprise was one of the greatest painters to produce at the Mangkaja Arts Center near Fitzroy Crossing in Australia's Kimberley.

Kumanjayi [deceased] Surprise was a highly regarded, award-winning contemporary artist known for her uninhibited painting style. She was born at Tapu in the Great Sandy Desert circa 1929.  Before Kumanjayi Surprise passed away, she told this story:

Tapu is my father’s country and Kurtal is my mother’s country. My parents died when I was a baby. I grew up at Wayampajarti and that is my country now. I don’t remember my mummy or daddy. They passed away in the desert. When I was crawling my sister-in-law Trixie took me to Christmas Creek. I was promised to one old man who had two wives. We had no clothes when we went in. We were frightened of the Station Manager so we ran away from that place. Two times we ran away to the desert.

I walked out from the bush as a young woman with my two brothers. We were living at Wayampajarti and the surrounding country. At Wayampajarti there is a jila [permanent waterhole] where Kalpartu [an ancestral snake] lives. When we lived out in the bush we learnt the law. We learnt where the water is, where our country is and where to find food. You have to be careful not to go to the wrong places because you might make the Kalpurtu [spirit snake] angry or them other ones like Kukurr, Murungkurr, Parlangan. You could make other people angry too. You need permission to go to other people’s country.

I went to the desert with my husband to look for kumanjayi [deceased] Skipper out there, then we all came back for ceremony. My husband worked as a contractor building fences and I travelled with him. I worked as a camp cook. I cooked food for big mobs of people. I also cleaned and milked goats. We worked at Quanbun Downs, Jubilee Station, Yiyili and Cherrabun Station. Then I lived mainly at one place, GoGo Station (near Fitzroy Crossing) until I was old. I came to Fitzroy Crossing in the 1950s. I have a big mob of kids and some of them have passed away now.

I first started painting at Karrayili Adult Education Centre in the early eighties. We told our stories through painting and learned to speak to English like kartiyas [Europeans]. I also painted at Bayulu community near Fitzroy Crossing. That’s how I told my story to kartiya. We worked on paper then, not canvas or board.

When I paint, I think about my country, and where I have been travelling across that country. I paint from here (points to head - thinking about country) and here (points to breasts, collarbone and shoulder blades - which is a reference to body painting). I think about my people, the old people and what they told me, and jumangkarni [Dreamtime]. When I paint I am thinking about law from a long time ago. I like painting. I get pamarr [rock, stone money] for it. I can buy my food, tyres and fix my car. I give some money to my family and I keep some for myself.

Nobody taught me how to paint. I put down my own ideas. I saw these places for myself when I went there with the old people. I paint jilji [sand hills], jumu [soak water], jila [permanent waterhole], jiwari [rock hole], pamarr [hills and rock country], I think about mangarri [vegetable food] and kuyu [game] from my country when I was there.

Myarta is the name of the country Warkartu Cory Suprise grew up in and lived her life. It is in the wet, fertile flood plain South of the Fitzroy River. The local art center where Cory painted is Mangkaja, near Fitzroy Crossing. The surrounding lands and valleys around Fitzroy Crossing are the home of a number of Aboriginal language groups. When Fitzroy Crossing was established, the main group were the Bunuba People, their land stretching from the present day Brooking Springs and Leopold Downs Cattle Station to the Oscar, Napier and King Leopold Ranges. The Bunuba are the River and Hill people.

Another group in the area stretching on the other side of the Fitzroy River from Gogo, Fossil Downs and Louisa Downs Station and on either side of the Margaret River, are the Gooniyandi People. The plains Aboriginal people are the Nyigina and further south are the Walmajarri (Cory's people), and the people of the Great Sandy Desert.

Other traditional owners of the area are the Njikena, Konejani and Waladjari peoples.

Cory Suprise's Mayarta paintings depict the moist, colorful lands of the region, filled with billabongs and abundant bush tucker (animals and plants collected for food). A billabong is an oxbow lake, an isolated pond left behind after a river changes course. Billabongs are usually formed when the path of a creek or river changes, leaving the former branch with a dead end. Billabongs, reflecting the arid Australian climate in which these "dead rivers" are found, fill with water seasonally and are dry for a greater part of the year.

Skin: Nyapana

Language: Walmajarri

Country: Pirrmal

DOB: 1 / 7 / 29

Exhibition History:

1991 Karrayili Tandanya, Adelaide

1992 Group Show Hogarth Gallery, Sydney

1993 Images Of Power National Gallery of Victoria

1993 Mangkaja Women Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth

1994 Ngajakura Ngurrara Minyarti, this is my country. Festival Of Perth Exhibition / Artplace Gallery, Perth

1995 Group Show Australian Perspectives Gallery, Brisbane

1995 Kimberley Art Melbourne

1995 National Aboriginal Art Award Selected to hang

1996 Group Show Hogarth Gallery, Sydney

1997 National Aboriginal Art Award Selected to hang

1997 Group Show Hogarth Gallery, Sydney

1998 Group Show Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London

1999 Ngurrara Japingka Gallery, Fremantle

2001 Ngurrara Canvas National Gallery of Australia

2001 Mangkaja Arts Ten Years On Mangkaja’s10 year Anniversary Show Tandanya, Adelaide

2002 Group Show Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne

2003 Mangkaja Women Raft Artspace, Darwin

2003 Jila, Jumu, Jiwari & Wirrkuja University of Western Australia

2003 Fitzroy Fusions Raft Artspace, Darwin

2004 This is Still My Country:10 years on Perth International Arts Festival Artplace, Perth

2004 Ngurrara Canvas Perth Concert Hall, Perth International Arts Festival

2005 Mangkaja Group Show Raft Artspace Darwin, Northern Territory

2005 True Colours Dell Gallery, Brisbane, Queensland

2005 Mangkaja, Boutwell Draper Gallery, Redfern, NSW

2005 Women of Mangkaja Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, Northern Territory

2005 Surprise…Cory and Friends Red Dot Gallery, Singapore

2009: Broome Prison - Panel design project

2008: Fitzroy Valley Education Centre – panel project

2008: Fitzroy Hospital - Wall design project, paintings on canvas, nurse base floor design

Awards:

2010: WA Indigenous Art Award

2009: Western Australian Premier’s Indigenous Art Award Winner of the ‘WA $10,000 Artist’ Award

2008: 25th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award Highly commended

1997: 14th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award Winner of the ‘Telstra Work on Paper’ Award

1997 Work on Paper Prize National Aboriginal Art Award

Publications:

1991 Karrayili; 10 years on Exhibition Catalogue

1991 Aboriginal women's Exhibition catalogue Art Gallery Of New South Wales

1993 Mangkaja Women Exhibition catalogue Fremantle Art Centre

1994 Ngajakura Ngurrara Minyarti, This Is My Country Exhibition Catalogue

1996 Minyarti Wangki Ngajukura Ngurrarajangka; This is the word from my country

Exhibition Catalogue 1998 Jila Painted Waters of the Great Sandy Desert

Video Documentary / SBS Television

2000 Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art Oxford University Press & ANU

2000 Karrayili The history of Karrayili Adult Education Centre IATSIS Canberra

2000 Painting Up Big, The Ngurrara Canvas Kaltja Now National Aboriginal Cultural Institute - Tandanya

2003 Martuwarra and Jila, Jumu, Jiwari and Wirrkuja Exhibition Catalogue Cullity Gallery UWA Perth / Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency

2003 The Painted Desert The Fate of an Aboriginal Masterpiece New Yorker Magazine July 28, 2003

Collections:

National Gallery of Australia

National Gallery of Victoria

National Museum of Australia

National Gallery of Australia

National Gallery of Victoria

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Charles Darwin University

Steve Luzco Collection, San Franciso, USA

Sammlung Alison and Peter W Klein Collection, Germany

Laverty Collection

HBL Collection, Melbourne

Harriett and Richard England Collection

Fitzroy Crossing High School

Fitzroy Crossing Hospital