TARISSE KING
GURINDJI WAANYI ARTIST
"For me, it’s all about connecting the deep and heart-warming influences of our historic culture with the joys and anticipation of a cohesive and unified future. It’s about family and faith and giving our children a joyous way forward."
In Adelaide South Australia, Tarisse King was born on September 4th 1986. She is older sister to artist Sarrita King and daughter of renowned influential indigenous artist, the late William King Jungala. The tribe from which she derives is the Gurindji. This now famous tribe came to public attention from 1966 – 1975 over land rights in what has become known as the Wave Hill Walk Off. It became the first successful Indigenous land rights claim. This extraordinary event cemented for her, the deep and immovable connection with the land. This was her representative and deep seated influencer.
Tarisse grew up in the raw and confronting landscapes around Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory. They were the influences she couldn’t ignore and coupled with the guiding insights provided by her father and his people, she saw the importance of art and representing our grand and wonderful country and its spirit so that all can ‘see’ where we live. The journeys between Katherine where her father lived, and Darwin were long, arduous, isolated, dusty and simultaneously beautiful. Here, there’s no place to hide and the truth of expression she discovered in her art was especially poignant in works such as Pink Salts and My Country – Tracks and Rivers.
At the age of 16 Tarisse moved to Adelaide where she began to paint – her ideas, influences, experiences, history and culture combined to produce in her a style that was not only illustrative of ancient culture but demonstrative of a contemporary hopefulness.
Now in New Zealand, as a mother of 3 girls, homemaker, life-partner and community member, she feels, more than ever, the strongest connection between the past and future. The past gives us history, stability, stories and roots while the future endows us with hope, anticipation, change and the notion of belonging to something quintessentially human.
