Mawukura is Australian Aboriginal artist a Walmajarri man. His country is around Wayampajarti, a Jila (a permanent waterhole) in the north-western area of the Great Sandy Desert. He was born near a waterhole called Wili, at a swamp called Miyitinynanguwu. He calls the names of places such as Tapu, Kurrjalpartu, Kayalijarti, Kurraly Kurraly, Walypa, Wayampajarti, Kumpujarti and Witikarrijarti as the main waterholes in his country. He grew up in the desert moving around these waterholes. Mawukura was ‘nearly a man’ when his father brought him to the station country to escape a very large fire that was burning in his country around Tapu. He went through law at Lumpu Lumpu and then went back to the desert with his father in law, where he lived for around five more years. The police came around there once, he says, but they did not pick him up, they gave him food. The police continued on but they were frightened by kalpurtu so they kept going, straight back to town. The same police picked up Huey Bent and took him to Cherrabun Station not long after. Mawukura eventually left the bush, possibly in the early sixties. After coming in from the desert, Jimmy spent most of his time working on Nerrimah Station.

Exhibition History

Solo Shows

• 1999 Artplace, Perth
• 1994 Artplace, Perth
• 1994 Reflections of the Kimberley Gallery, Derby
• 1993 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
• 2001 Artplace, Perth
• 2003 Cooee Gallery Sydney
• 2003 Artplace, Perth
• 2004 45 Downstairs Gallery, Melbourne
• 2005 Artplace, Perth
• 2005 Raft Artspace, Darwin

Group shows

• 1999 Selected to hang in 16th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Darwin
• 1999 Aboriginal Kunst aus West Australien, Galerie Gaswerk, Germany
• 1999 Cooee Gallery Sydney with Peter Skipper
• 1994 ACAF-4, Fourth Australian Contemporary Art Fair, Melbourne
• 1994 Eight Western Australian Artists, The Blaxland Gallery, Sydney
• 1994 City of Gosnells Art Award, Art Prize
• 2001 Ngurrara Canvas National Gallery of Australia
• 2001 Framed Gallery, Darwin
• 2001 Cooee Gallery Sydney with Peter Skipper

Publications

• 1994 Playful Air to Dottiness of Bushcapes Rod O’Brien

The West Australian, 19/5

• 1995 Late Starter Tells Desert Story in Bright Acrylics Anna King Murdoch

The Age 3/12

• 1998 Jila Painted Waters of the Great Sandy Desert

Video Documentary / SBS Television

• 2000 Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art

Oxford University Press & ANU

• 2000 Kaltja Now, Indigenous Arts Australia

Wakefield Press and Tandanya Aboriginal Cultural Institute

Collections

• Levy Kaplan Collection, Seattle USA
• Thomas Vroom Collection, Amsterdam
• National Gallery of Australia
• Art Gallery of Western Australia
• Gabrielle Pizzi
• Ian & Sue Bernadt Collections
• Wesfarmers Ltd