Mervyn Rubuntja

Skin name: Japanangka
Language: Western Arrernte
Date of birth: 11th February 1958
Current home: Alice Springs

Mervyn was born at the Telegraph Station in Alice Springs. His mother, Cynthia (Kamara) was a Western Arrernte woman. His father was the famous painter, the late Mr. Winton Rubuntja Pengarte.His father has been an important role model for Mervyn. He was a senior  Lawman and and a respected member of his community. He fought for Aboriginal rights and protection of the land and worked alongside the Central Land Council and assisted in the Marbo agreement. (See his biography The Town grew up Dancing, IAD Press). Mervyn is following in his father’s footsteps and painting his watercolours in the way his father taught him.
When Mervyn was 13 yrs old his family moved to Hermannsburg. This is where he first saw watercolour paintings as he watched his uncles Maurice, Oscar and Keith Namatjira painting like their father Albert.
Arnulf Ebatarinja, another uncle, gave him some watercolour paperboard and told him to paint and that was the beginning for him. Mervyn’s family moved back to Alice Springs again in 1975 and he began to paint with Basil Rantji, who taught him how to mix colours. Then his father gave him some paperboards too and he watched his father painting.
Mervyn lives at Larapinta camp where he has paints at the Learning Centre. He  also paints for Ngurratjuta’s art centre. Mervyn has sold his paintings at the Papunya Tula Gallery and the Arunta Book shop in Alice Springs and accepted again for the 2008 Telstra Awards in Darwin.
In 2006 Mervyn was invited to submit a painting for the “Mornington Peninsular Works on Paper” Exhibition.

Exhibitions include:

• 2004 Central Advocate Award, Alice Springs
• 2005 Desert Mob Exhibition, Alice Springs.
• 2006 “Hermannsburg School of Art” Water colour exhibition, Araluen Galleries
• 2006 Desert Mob Exhibition, Alice Springs
• 2007 Shifting Ground Exhibition, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2007 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of NT
• 2007 Desert Mob Exhibition, Alice Springs
• 2008 The Namatjira circle-landscapes of Central Australia, Birrung Gallery, Sydney NSW
• 2008 Desert Mob Exhibition, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2008 25th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Award, Museum and Art Gallery of NT
• 2009 Desert Mob Exhibition, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2009 Real to Surreal, Scenes from the Centre: Journey with the new Generation of Hermannsburg Watercolour artists, Tandanya Adelaide, SA
• 2009 Beyond Batterby, Recent Watercolour by Central Australian Artists, Hobart Tasmania
• 2009 The Watercolourists of Central Australia, Indigenart, Melbourne Vic
• 2011 Art Mob Gallery, Hobart TAS
• 2011 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne VIC
• 2011 Chapman Gallery, Canberra

Collections:

• Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs, NT
• Ian Viner QC
• Museum and Art Gallery of NT