Nyaparu (William) Gardiner

Born 1943, at Brookman River, Western Australia, Nyaparu (William) Gardiner, (Nyangumarta/Warnman/Manjilyjarra people), lived most of his life in, and around, the Pilbara region before passing in 2018, South Hedland. Gardiner’s artistic practice pays homage to his ancestors and the struggles of past generations, recognising their legacy and upholding the values they fought for.

Having learnt to draw at a young age, inspired by the works produced by old people around him, Gardiner said he saw what they were doing and “liked these things’ [1] so thought he would give it a try. His first reference books were comics, and over time he developed his own illustrative style. Observing artists mixing colours to match the landscape, Gardiner acknowledged the challenge in learning to harness colour in a way that would best represent his vision. His confidence to move into painting came later in life.

Gardiner worked in both pastoral and mining industries during his life and was also a dedicated language worker. He wrote several texts with Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre including an illustrated autobiography, Ngajumili Muwarr Wanikinyarni Partanyja Wirtujatinyankanu Mirtanyajartinyi: My Life Story [2]. The illustrations from this book were later reproduced as a children’s colouring-in book for use in early language development.

As a child, Gardiner witnessed his parents protesting against the injustices of the state government’s Aborigines Act (1905), the Native Administration Act (1936) and their involvement during the 1946-48 Pilbara pastoral strike. As one the longest recorded strikes, it was a landmark event for Aboriginal rights, fighting for the recognition and payment of fair wages and working conditions for Aboriginal people.  In Gardiner’s words, ‘We wasn’t allowed to go to school, we wasn’t allowed to get paid money. We worked for flour, sugar, tea. Rations! We went on strike and we become equal. We become recognised as human beings.’

These events and Gardiner’s own experience working on pastoral stations throughout the Pilbara and Kimberley regions, directly informed his works of art. As a young man he was encouraged to draw by the Australian artist Sam Fullbrook, who had travelled to Strelley station in the 1950s, but it wasn’t until 2013 when he was given an opportunity to paint at Spinifex Hill Studios in South Hedland, that he was able to further develop his art practice. Having also worked as a linguist and story teller, words were a vital part of Gardiner’s practice as he often wrote short descriptions about his paintings.

This group of 14 works, including 12 paintings and two works on paper are personal and intimate portraits of Gardiner’s father and grandfather as well as the men who Gardiner knew or briefly encountered as a young man. Among them rugged miners and the ‘Strelley mob’, the pastoral workers who motivated the 1946 strike and then bought their own station, Strelley. Suspended within a landscape, Gardiner renders his figures slightly askew in synthetic polymer paint. Their anatomical features are often distended or elongated and at times their forms float in open space with their limbs blending into the scene or appearing as ghostly outlines. Painted from the artist’s memory these paintings are reminders of experiences from the artist’s and our collective pasts.

My Jamu (Grandfather) Mine, 2018, is an exquisite example of Gardiner’s practice of visiting and illustrating his memories. The dreamlike quality of the image gives the sense of time passing but the moment continuing to exist. Gardiner’s work has been described as depicting ‘Slow time’ [4], capturing the essence of life in the Pilbara. As evident in My Jamu (Grandfather) Mine, the male figures in Gardiner’s work are often drawn in a particular stance. Jessyca Hutchens’ observes, ‘… always so skinny and long-legged, as though seen from the perspective of a child looking up at a beloved grandfather. He can do anything. Australian heroes’ [5].

In the last 4 years of his life, Gardiner, painted at Spinifex Hill Studio, South Hedland, Western Australia. He was prolific in his production of work creating an extraordinary number of paintings during this time. In 2019, Gardiner was posthumously awarded Best Work on Paper at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. And, in 2023-2024, a major retrospective, titled, He is myself: The Art of Nyaparu (William) Gardiner, showing fifty works of art, toured Western Australia.

‘Some of these paintings that I illustrate is just to show that that’s how we used to live, mostly around this Pilbara area to Marble Bar. I like to draw this sort of things… I’m learning my grandchildren to understand old sort of things like this, and my children they already know.’ [6]