DAVID MILLER

Language: Pitjantjatjara

Community: Kalka, APY Lands

Art Centre: Ninuku Arts.

“Our families, Anangu, come in and do paintings. They learn at Ninuku - learning, training and painting. After all our old people leave - it’s our turn. We’ll be passing to our family and they’ll be passing on to their family. It’s the generations – it goes on and on. We are sharing our paintings, our pictures. We’re already sharing our story, our cultural way in the painting. The stories that you see in the paintings - that’s our story and our Dreaming.”
David Miller.

David Miller is a senior Pitjantjatjara man, living in the remote community settlement of Pipalyatjara in western desert of the APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunyatjara) Lands of northern South Australia. He began painting in 2005 and has achieved much acclaim for his work. He was involved in the setting up of Pipalyatjara Community and the homeland at Inarki. As a traditional law man, he has a vast knowledge of Tjukurpa (ancestral creation stories). He is fluent in English along with his native Pitjantjatjara and his translating skills are often called upon by government agencies.

His artwork tells the Ngintaka Tjukurpa (Perentie dreaming story). Ngintaka, the giant Perentie lizard, steals a special grindstone, stopping at waterholes and finding food sources in his travels across the lands with it.

“I am speaking for my father’s country and my father’s Tjukurpa of the Ngintaka. It begins near Mutinka, this side of Walytjatjata, near where the Ngintaka threw the seed away. My father’s grandfather is the Ngintaka. Wati Ngintaka is important for us. There are many rockholes, all the way to the West, where he made camp. The songs tell us where he created a place and danced. We need to keep in touch with those places, so we can show our young people and they can carry the story on. My son can take the story from a certain point and show his son; my daughter can show her daughters. When they grow up they can show their family the same place they were taught by their grandfather and grandmother. What we are telling is an open story. It is for everyone, and it gives me much pleasure to be able to share this with people so they can see and know that we are a cultural people and, just like we are holding our freehold title, we hold our culture strongly for future generations.”

David Miller is the Chairman of Ku Arts and a Board Director of Ninuku Arts, an Aboriginal-owned and incorporated art centre, out of which he and the artists of Pipalyatjara and Kalka work.

Ku ArtsAugust 23, 2022DAVID MILLER