Born:            1988
Language:    Gurindji 
Country:       Katherine, NT

Sarrita King was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1988. She spent her youth in Darwin and returned to Adelaide in her teenage years. She and older sister, Tarisse, who is also an artist, grew up exposed to the painting of their father, highly regarded Aboriginal artist William King Jungala who passed away in December 2007 at only 41 years of age. This was a sad loss not only for his family but also for Australian Aboriginal Art.

William was born in Gurindji country near Katherine in the Northern Territory. He was a deeply thoughtful man who viewed nature with an artist’s eye. By the age of 27, he had developed a unique art style which led to his work being selected for an exhibition at The Gallery of Greater Victoria in British Columbia, Canada as part of the Commonwealth Games celebrations. He spent most of the last 20 years of this life in Adelaide where Sarrita often visited him.

The King sisters were strongly influenced by their father and became interested in his art and in his unusual technique. Today, they are part of the next generation of highly regarded Aboriginal artists – artists who are influenced by their Aboriginal heritage and the experiences of their people, but who also respond to and wish to represent the western environment in which they have been raised.

Sarrita continues the Dreamings of her father, her energetic and meticulously executed works representing the Earths elements – wind, rain, lightning and fire. Success came very quickly for Sarrita with her powerful, detailed works garnering attention of serious collectors around the globe. She has been included in more than 20 successful Australian and International exhibitions. She is represented in Galleries throughout Europe and her paintings have been auctioned at the influential Artcurial on Paris’ Champs-Élysées.

Sarrita now spends much of her time in a studio she shares with her sister in Adelaide and in addition to her painting and studying (Journalism at the University of South Australia); she is exploring the media of digital documentary making.

Lightning Dreaming

Sarrita’s Lightning paintings are a painted memory of the electrical storms in the tropical climate of Darwin. Lightning would crack across the entire sky, creating lines similar to the cracked earth of her father’s Country. And with lightning came the furious winds that whipped the dust, rain, heat and magnetic energy into a maelstrom. Like her father, Sarrita saw this through an artist’s eye – she would see and retain new patterns and colours each time she witnessed these natural light shows.

Language of Earth Dreaming

The dreaming depicted in these works represents the intersections of black and white in Australia throughout history.  The lines build into solid block representing Tingari and defining the evolution from intersecting and often conflicting lines to the many individual and collaborative journeys undertaken in relative harmony today.

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