Birds and bush food at Hermannsburg Mountain

$2,900.00

I make birds, it’s good to make the birds. There’s a blackbird, blackbirds fly around. And two budgies, they was kissing (hehe). Hermannsburg Mountain in the back. I make vegetable on this one too, marna mapa – bush one.

Dawn Wheeler was born in 1953 in Hermannsburg. She is the daughter of Pastor Peter Buller, a Lutheran missionary of whom she has fond memories and recalls learning to make music sticks from him. Dawn married in 1970, and her family live at Rirrka (Sandhill) Camp in Ntaria and spend time visiting their nearby outstation – Rrirrkathathaka (Red Sand Hill).

Dawn draws on the landscape around her, her love of her father’s country, whose memory has inspired her to maintain links to her Luritja heritage through her art practice. Dawn is a respected senior artist, she is a precise and methodical potter, and her style is noted for her considered figurative story telling. Dawn’s work is held in prominent public collections including at the Art Gallery of NSW and the National Gallery of Australia. Dawn was Hermannsburg Potter’s feature artist at Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair 2023 and had her work show at the Indian Ceramics Triennale in 2024.