Tali Ngura Wiru – Beautiful Sandhill Country

In February, our Eora/Sydney gallery’s upstairs exhibition space will host a joint exhibition by sisters Priscilla Singer and Trisha Singer – two celebrated Iwantja artists whose first Michael Reid Sydney showing will continue throughout next month, coinciding with a large-scale solo exhibition by their Iwantja Arts peer Raylene Walatinna in our ground-floor gallery. Together, these presentations attest to a powerful, intergenerational dialogue grounded in Country, kinship and the living continuity of Aṉangu cultural practice, while reflecting the verve and vibrancy that has powered Iwantja’s exuberant, world-significant new movement in contemporary First Nations painting over the past four decades.

Since its founding in the early 1980s, Iwantja Arts has played a vital role in championing Aṉangu land rights, self-determination, language and cultural expression – a legacy inseparable from the work of Priscilla and Trisha’s mother, the late artist Kunmanara (Sadie) Singer, who co-founded Iwantja Arts alongside Alec Baker. A revered artist, cultural leader and advocate, Sadie Singer’s influence continues to resonate through the practices of her daughters.

Anchoring the sisters’ joint exhibition, Tali Ngura Wiru – Beautiful Sandhill Country, are two newly completed, large-scale diptychs – one by each artist – conceived as twin pillars around which a constellation of vibrant canvases will circulate. Together, these works trace a shared geography while allowing space for individual cadence, colour and mark-making to emerge.

“I’ve been making art since I was a young girl,” says Trisha Singer, who paints Tali Ngura – sandhill Country – on Yankunytjatjara land. “You can see sandhills in the colours I use, desert colours, with dusty reds and oranges. I paint the important places that I know well, that my mother shared with me. There’s a lot of my mum in my work – what she liked and what she taught me. I like looking at different flowers, and going on Country and getting the knowledge of the land, and the story, passed on from grandparents … When you travel, you see the changes in the land. It comes alive.”

For Priscilla Singer, a senior Pitjantjatjara woman and longstanding leader within the Iwantja community, painting is an act of remembrance, transmission and care. “When I’m painting, I always think about my grandfather’s Country and my mother’s painting. I try to paint the places they travelled around,” she says. “I look to my mum’s painting and show some of that same story in my work. I paint the red sand. The red sand never changes; it is always here. When the sun sets, you can see the glow of the earth. I paint this country so people can see my land, they can appreciate its beauty and understand its power.”

Family, language and collective strength sit at the heart of both sisters’ artistic practices. “Family and community are so important to Aṉangu culture,” says Priscilla Singer, who previously exhibited her work to great acclaim in the 2025 Michael Reid Southern Highlands group show Ngura Pilunpa – Peaceful Country. “Our connection to each other and to our Country informs everything we do, especially making art and passing on culture to our younger generations. Being together makes us strong.”

All works from Tali Ngura Wiru – Beautiful Sandhill Country by Priscilla Singer and Trisha Singer can be previewed and acquired by request in the lead-up to the opening. Please email hughholm@michaelreid.com.au