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for Jimmy Pike
Jimmy Pike
1940-2002
Skin Name: Banaka
Walmajarri artist Jimmy Pike was born east of Japirnka, a major waterhole in the Great Sandy Desert. He grew up in a semi-nomadic family group, and did not meet European Australians until he was in his early teens, when he first left the desert in the late 1950s, to experience life on a cattle station. Pike later became a stockman.
Pike first began to draw and paint in 1980, when he attended art classes at Fremantle Prison. The art teachers, Stephen Culley and David Wroth, later set up Desert Designs, a company that transposed Pike’s imagery onto fabric, clothing and domestic items.
He met his wife, psychologist and writer Pat Lowe, in Broome. They collaborated on a number of books, including ‘Jilji: Life in the Great Sandy Desert’ (1990), ‘Yinti: Desert Child’ (1992), ‘Jimmy and Pat meet the Queen’ (1997) and ‘Desert Cowboy’ (2000).
An important participant in the Native Title canvas projects, Ngurrara 1 and 2, Pike also held a number of solo exhibitions throughout his career, including a major retrospective show at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, in 1996. Pike’s work also featured in numerous group exhibitions, both nationally and internationally.
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