Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to welcome an intricate body of work from Tiwi artist Barbara Puruntatameri to its Naarm/ Melbourne gallery this December.

Born and raised in Pirlangimpi, a remote Aboriginal community located on the northwestern coast of Melville Island, and now living in Milikapiti on the northeast coast, Puruntatameri is recognised for her use of the iconic Tiwi Kayimwagakimi, a toothed ironwood comb typically used for applying ochre colours to the body for ceremony.

Through her rhythmic and deliberate composition, she speaks to and extends upon the complex and continuing cultural narratives that develop out of the Tiwi Islands.

When I do painting, I use kayimwagakimi – the ironwood comb. It is a body paint tool we use to make dots in a straight line, no brush just comb.

(Barbara Puruntatameri, 2026)

For her debut Sullivan+Strumpf presentation Puruntatameri has employed the Kayimwagakimi to create ten bark and five linen works, a body titled Pwoja wuta Marlipinyini. The title translates literally to “dots going in lines” but also refers to the vertically arranged dots used within ceremonial Tiwi body painting which Puruntatameri draws upon.

These designs form part of the Yirrinkiripwoja jilamara that is used during Pukumani (mourning) ceremony to disguise dancers and mourning relatives from mapurtiti, or the spirit of the deceased.
Jilamara Arts Manager Will Heathcote speaks to the complexity imbued into these quietly profound works, saying, “Their apparent simplicity gives way to a depth of significance once you look at them within the framework of continuous living Tiwi culture.”

Puruntatameri’s first exhibition with Sullivan+Strumpf is the result of a new collaborative relationship with the renowned Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association in Milikapiti, Tiwi Islands. Puruntatameri, as well as fellow Jilamara artist Kaye Brown joined Sullivan+Strumpf in September of this year, representing the “vanguard of a new wave of artists from Jilamara Arts” writes academic Henry Skerritt.

Puruntatameri has enjoyed success at annual Art Centre group exhibitions such as Yoyi (dance) that showed at Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery (University of Melbourne), Gropius Bau (Berlin) and The National 4: Australian Art Now at MCA Australia. In recent years, she has been selected for Rising stars - an annual exhibition at Outstation Gallery in Darwin, and Colour is enough at Melbourne’s Collingwood Yards, curated by David Sequeira. INn2025 she was shortlisted as a first-time finalist in the bark category of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.