Bugai Whyoulter
No public contact details available.
Bugai is a Kartujarra woman and a senior custodian of the lands surrounding Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). She was born in the 1940s at Pukayiyirna, on present-day Balfour Downs Station, though her parents soon travelled northward with her through Jigalong and Nullagine toward Kunawarritji. She grew up walking and hunting with her parents, her younger sister Pinyirr Nancy Pearson (dec.), and extended family, primarily travelling around the eastern side of the Karlamilyi (Rudall River) region and along the midsection of the Canning Stock Route, from Kartarru (Canning Stock Route Well 24) to Kunawarritji (Canning Stock Route Well 33). As a young woman, Bugai travelled up and down large tracts of the 1,850 km-long Canning Stock Route, where she and her husband met and walked with cameleers. In 1963, Bugai’s family encountered the surveyor Len Beadell, who was then grading roads for the Woomera Missile Testing Range. He gave the family flour, which Bugai used to show her relatives how to cook a simple damper (flatbread). Bugai had herself learned to bake with flour during earlier interactions with drovers along the Stock Route. Shortly afterward, Bugai, her husband, and the extended family group she was travelling with decided to move to Jigalong Mission. There they joined many other relatives who had already come in from the desert following a prolonged and severe drought. They were among the last Martu to leave the desert. From Jigalong, Bugai moved to Aboriginal communities in Strelley, Punmu, and Parnngurr before relocating to Kunawarritji Aboriginal community, where she continues to live today. There she was taught to paint by renowned artists Nora Nungabar (Nyangapa) (dec.) and Nora Wompi (dec.). The three women painted together as often as possible. For a long time before she began painting, Bugai wove baskets while observing her friends paint; she later explained that she had been uncertain how to begin. Today, Bugai is considered one of the most established Martumili Artists and is known as a master of colour, gesture, and subtlety. Her reflective works are layered with distinctively delicate brushmarks, with subtle colour shifts representing landmarks, water sources, and desert flora. Bugai’s work was selected for the 2019, 2018, and 2013 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, the 2012 Bankwest Contemporary Art Prize and Hedland Art Award, and the 2010 Western Australian Indigenous Art Award. In 2023 and 2024, she was a finalist in the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), and in 2021 she received the highly regarded General Painting Award. Bugai has held regular solo exhibitions, and her work has been acquired by several major institutions in Australia, including the National Museum of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art.
Artworks
9