Boxer Milner Tjampitjin

After many of the oldest and most venerated men who began painting at Balgo Hills in the late 1980s had already passed away, one artist emerged during the late 90s and early 2000s, who may come to be considered the most remarkable of them all. Boxer Milner, a tall, gentle old cattleman began painting quite minimal, small, rigid, paintings with linear shapes and large amounts of monochromatic dotting in the late 1980's. Growing in confidence as an artist through the 1990s, his paintings veered further and further away from conventional Balgo aesthetics as he went on to create ever more exciting and challenging compositions. His work stands out as the very best the region has produced in paintings that offer an entirely different vision from the vivid depictions of sandy desert country, characteristic of the majority of Balgo artists. Born at Milnga-Milnga, south-west of Billiluna near Sturt Creek c. 1934, Boxer was one of a small number who come from the transition zone between the desert and the river country. This is Tjaru land, where the country and vegetation move from flat and featureless rolling spinifex plains to flood plains with enormous river channels and permanent water holes. Here the yearly cycles of flood and dry create swamps with abundant bird life, through which runs Purkitji, or Sturt Creek. It is the intimate knowledge of all the facets of the river system as a traditional owner of Purkitji, which informed the majority of Boxers paintings and his unique aesthetic. He represented this land in a way that was more than just physical - it was geographic, meteorological and mythical. His country is redolent with colours, landmarks, and a life force very different to that which exists only a short distance to the South, where the Great Sandy Desert begins. Paintings from this region have colours - blues and greens - that are not found elsewhere in Balgo art. In Boxers paintings, floodwaters are coloured by the white silt of the surrounding clay country. This is the milk water, which features in many of Boxers works, providing a geometric grid against which the rest of the landscape is represented, imposing carefully depicted boundaries of story over the land. His motifs refer to the miraculous transformations in the land and sky as new life seeps into the flat lands; of the passage of water and the changing coloured tides; and the mythological drama associated with the sight and sound of thunder, lightning, rain, and brilliant rainbows. Colour changes represent the trees and vegetation, the red and white stones, the black soil, the myriad channels and tributaries, the hills and the contours that define the artists home. All this is contained within the dot and line work that surrounds the inescapable forms and patterns that he employed to portray Purkitji. Boxers paintings are characterised by a masterful sense of composition and an innate ability to mix and marry colours on the canvas. Stylistically his paintings take the linear compositional elements developed by artists such as Lucy Yukenbarri and John Lee Tjakamarra, and elevate them to a level unparalleled by any other painter. His incredibly large hands painted with great control, assurance, and precision, using a two handed action that was an absolute expression of patience and integrity. Former art co-ordinator, Erica Izett, described his colour fields as mesmerising and precisely articulated. Each dot is applied to the canvas twice over with a stick, so that it sits up, much like a frozen raindrop piercing water or dust. For Boxer, each brushstroke was measured and definite, with deliberate dots covering the surface of the canvas. While he may have begun painting with primaries, the finished paintings consist of an incredible range of colours, which he mixed carefully. He juxtaposed reds and pinks or blues and lavenders, filling the entire canvas with dots. The colours created by Boxer are different to those of any other Balgo painter and at times can be totally unexpected. A self-taught colour mixer, Boxer showed an extraordinary sense of subtlety and beauty. As he advanced in age his work stood out as the very best the region has produced. Tim Acker, now with the artists advocacy association, Desart, spent several years at Balgo Hills and knew Boxer and his art intimately. Despite having worked with Aboriginal artists across the far north and desert regions and with all of the great living Balgo artists, in his opinion there was 'no artist Ive ever met like Boxer. His work is amongst the most distinctive of all Aboriginal artists, anywhere. His inventiveness, the way he plays with form, structure, and shape is unique, as is his use of colour'. Acker likened watching Boxer paint to watching a sculpture being carved from stone'. He approached the canvas so patiently, assessed it so carefully, before recreating - dot by dot, stroke by stroke, in a thrilling variety of ways - the story of that flood-prone Purkitji country.

Johnson, V., 1994, The Dictionary of Western Desert Artists, Craftsman House, East Roseville, New South Wales. (C).
1994, Dream Journeys Calendar.
Ryan, Judith (editor), Colour Power - Aboriginal Art Post 1984, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2004 (C).
Bardon, Geoffrey; Ryan, Judith; Pizzi, Gabrielle; Stanhope, Zara; Mythology and Reality - Contemporary Aboriginal Desert Art from the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne.

2000 - Boxer Milner; Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi; Melbourne.

2014 - Warlayirti: The Art of Balgo, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne.
2008 - Paintings from remote communities: Indigenous Australian art from the Laverty collection, Newcastle Regional Gallery, Newcastle, NSW.
2007 - BALGO 07, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2006 - Balgo, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2005 - Balgo 2005, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne.
2004 - Colour Power - Aboriginal Art Post 1984, National Gallery of Victoria, Federation Square, Melbourne; Mythology and Reality - Contemporary Aboriginal Desert Art from the Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, Heidi Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; 21st Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
2003 - 20th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
2002 - 30th Alice Prize, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs; Balgo Hills, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; 19th NATSIAA, Museum and Art Gallery of NT, Darwin; Balgo Hills Artists 2002, Art Mob, Aboriginal Fine Art, Tasmania; Art from Balgo, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs; Big Colour My Country, Thornquest Gallery, Melbourne; Balgo Hills: An artist's survey, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney.
2001 - Opening Exhibition, Thornquest Gallery, Gold Coast; Beyond Wings, Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide; Balgo Men, Framed Gallery, Darwin; Aborigena Arte, Australiana, Contemporuneu, Torino, Palazzo Bricherasio, Italy; Desert Mob, Arulen Centre, Alice Springs; Kutjungka, Bett Gallery, Hobart; Recent Works by Artists from Balgo Hills, Ochre Gallery, Collingwood, Victoria; Spirituality and Australian Aboriginal Art, Alcaston Gallery, Madrid, Spain; Past Modern: an exhibition of Kimberley Landscapes, Short Street Gallery in conjunction with Australia Square, Sydney.
2000 - The Westside: Images in Ochre and Colour, Coo-ee II Exhibiting Gallery, Yuwayi Art Precinct, World Square, Sydney; Olympic Exhibition, Coo-ee Exhibiting Gallery, Yuwayi Art Precinct, World Square, Sydney; Balgo Hills, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne; Melbourne Artfair 2000, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne; Dreaming in Colour: Australian Aboriginal Art from Balgo, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, Virginia, USA; H2O A Miscellany: Works from the Kerry Stokes Collection, Lawrence Wilson Gallery, University of Western Australia, Perth.
1999 - 24th Annual Shell Fremantle Print Award, Fremantle Arts Center, Fremantle; 30th Alice Prize, Araluen Centre, Alice Springs; Mularrpa (True) Balgo, Framed Gallery, Darwin; Miliynyin, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney; Miliynyin, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle.
1998 - Ngurrara: My Own Country, Hogarth galleries, Sydney; 15th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
1997 - Balgo Men, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne.
1995 - New Works By the Artists of Balgo Hills, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Paddington.
1992 - Warlayirti Artists' Homelands, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Paddington
1991 - A Focus on Western Australia, Crafts Council of NSW, The Rocks, Sydney; Papunya, Yuendumu, Balgo: Art from the Central and Western Deserts, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Paddington; Warlayirti Artists from Balgo Hills, WA, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney; Paintings from Balgo, WA, Hogarth Galleries, Sydney.

Berndt Museum of Anthropology, University of Western Australia.
Gabrielle Pizzi Collection.
Kerry Stokes Collection.
Kluge Ruhe Collection, USA, Berndt Museum of Anthropology.
Laverty Collection.
National Gallery of Victoria.
University of Western Australia.

Warlayirti Artists