Image: Atipalku Intjalki, Tjukurpa Mulayangu / Atipalku’s Story, 165-26, Acrylic on Canvas, 1800 x 980mm. Image courtesy Ernabella Arts.
50 Years of Deadly at Adelaide Airport
7 July – 30 September 2025
Adelaide Airport
Curated by: Lawson Dodd
Featuring: Atipalku Intjalki, Imiyari (Yilpi) Adamson, Janice Stanley, Langaliki Lewis, Makinti Minutjukur, Michelle Lewis, Mukayi Baker, Tjulyata Kulyuru
Presented on Kaurna Country, this exhibition celebrates the 2026 NAIDOC theme, 50 Years of Deadly. Respect is paid to the Kaurna people, Traditional Custodians of the Adelaide Plains, and to Elders past and present whose enduring connection to Country, culture and community continues to shape this place.
Presented in partnership with Adelaide Airport and Guildhouse, this exhibition recognises five decades of honouring the achievements, resilience and contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the continent. While this milestone invites reflection on the journey of NAIDOC, it also reminds us that First Nations stories, cultures and connections extend far beyond these fifty years. They are ancient, living and ongoing.
This exhibition showcases the work of artists from Ernabella Arts, Australia’s oldest continuously operating Aboriginal art centre. Established in 1948 and located in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of far north west South Australia, Ernabella Arts has long been a place of cultural expression, innovation and artistic excellence. Through generations of artists, it has fostered the sharing of knowledge, stories and connection to Country through contemporary art practice.
The works gathered here speak to the enduring strength of culture and the importance of community, identity and intergenerational knowledge. Rich in story and grounded in Country, these artworks reflect the ways First Nations artists continue to honour tradition while embracing contemporary forms of expression. Together, they demonstrate the vitality and diversity of Aboriginal art today.
An airport is a place of movement. Every day, thousands of people arrive on and depart from Kaurna Country. In this space of transition, these artworks offer an invitation to pause, reflect and engage with stories that have been carried across generations and continue to evolve through the voices of contemporary First Nations artists.
The theme 50 Years of Deadly celebrates excellence, achievement and resilience. It honours those who have paved the way over the past five decades while recognising the artists, leaders and communities who continue to shape the future. In many ways, the history of Ernabella Arts reflects this spirit, a legacy of cultural strength, creativity and continuity that continues to thrive across generations.
These works remind us that culture is not static. It is living. It adapts, grows and carries forward the stories of those who came before us while creating space for those yet to come.
Visitors are invited to spend time with these works, listen to the stories they share and celebrate fifty years of deadly achievement, creativity and cultural strength.
– Lawson Dodd (Kaurna, Narungga and Ngarrindjeri)
Curator
This exhibition is presented in partnership by Guildhouse and Adelaide Airport, with exhibition partner Ernabella Arts.
All artworks are for sale.
For purchase enquires please contact Guildhouse directly:
08 8410 1822 or guildhouse@guildhouse.org.au
About the artists:
Atipalku Intjalki
Atipalku is the matriarch of a highly regarded family of Ernabella artists. She was born in Ernabella on the Aangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands and first started working at the art centre over fifty years ago. In those days the artists hand-spun sheep fleece into wool and then dyed it to weave floor rugs and wall hangings. In the 1970’s Atipalku excelled in creating batik silk works, some of which are held in the National Gallery of Australia. Today Atipalku is an accomplished tjanpi (grass) weaver, punu (wood) artist and painter. Atipalku’s work across a variety of mediums has been shown in over 50 exhibitions nationally and internationally.
Atipalku’s husband Adrian Intjalki was an established punu artist and her son Jeffrey Lewis is well known for painting birds. Atipalku’s three daughters Michelle Lewis, Lynette Lewis and Langaliki Lewis are all highly sought after for their canvas and ceramic work. Atipalku’s granddaughter Jayana Andy is also an emerging artist in the ceramics studio.
Imiyari (Yilpi) Adamson
Imiyari was born in Ernabella in 1954. She has been coming to the art centre since she was a young woman and she has worked across many different mediums over the years. Imiyari is an accomplished batik artist, tjanpi weaver, an expert mukata (beanie) maker as well as being a painter. She is the mother of Priscilla and Sandra Adamson, who are up and coming artists, and aunt of emerging break through artist Tjulyata Kulyuru. Imiyari has works in the collections of the National Museum of Australia and the National Museum of Scotland.
Imiyari is a highly respected senior artist and community elder. She has been an Ernabella Arts Board member in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Janice Stanley
Janice is the third generation of Stanley women to create artwork at Ernabella Arts. She is an early career painter and ceramic artist. Her grandmother is founding artist and traditional healer Tjariya Stanley and her aunts are senior artists Alison Milyika Carroll and Renita and Inawinytji Stanley.
When Janice was still at school she would come into the art centre and watch her grandmother and aunties creating artworks. After finishing school she was part of a circus troupe that went on excursion to Christmas Island off the coast of WA. It was there that Janice learnt about lakes. She also saw them from the air for the first time, and that became the inspiration for her paintings.
Janice lives in Pukatja with her husband and has two children.
Langaliki Lewis
Langaliki is the daughter of senior artist Atipalku Intjalki (painter) and Adrian Intjalki (timber artist) and mother to three daughters. Her sister is the highly-skilled potter Lynette Lewis.
Langaliki went to school in Ernabella and then Adelaide. On returning from Adelaide she began working at the Ernabella TAFE and later the community office and then store.
She is an up and coming artist who is showing great promise in her sensitive depictions of her country on canvas. Her ceramics were first exhibited at Sabbia Gallery in Sydney in 2014 and recent paintings depicting a powerful storm cloud story have been widely exhibited. Her work has been shown in galleries around Australia including Sydney, Darwin, Alice Springs, Broome, Mittagong, York (WA) and overseas including Brussels and the USA.
Makinti Minutjukur
Makinti came to the art centre as a young girl when it was still the craft room. Ernabella Arts was her first job after leaving school. Makinti started as an artist doing batik and painting. She also worked closely with Winifred Hilliard who started the craft room. Makinti did the wages every week and she was in charge of the art centre when Winifred went away.
Makinti is family for renowned Ernabella artist Tjunkaya Tapaya OAM. As well as being an artist, Makinti wears many hats in the community including respected leader, translator, health worker and Director of the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Education Committee (PYEC). Makinti has played a key role in the translation of the bible into Pitjantjatjara. In 2022 she was the Chair of Ernabella Arts.
Makiniti is also a talented singer and member of the Ernabella choir, with which she has performed at numerous events including WOMAdelaide.
Michelle Lewis
Michelle was born in Ernabella in 1983, where she went to school and later worked at the Ernabella Clinic.
Michelle is a rising star of the Ernabella Arts painting studio. Her mother is senior artist Atipalku Intjalki and her father is master punu (wood) maker Adrian Intjalki. Her sisters Langaliki and Lynette Lewis are both also very accomplished artists. Michelle began painting in 2017 and quickly developed an individual style based around her father’s country at Makiri, east of Ernabella.
In 2025 one of Michelle’s paintings was animated and projected onto the facade of Parliament House in Canberra for National Reconciliation Week in May and again fro NAIDOC week in July. Michelle’s was only the third painting to have been illuminated onto Parliament House.
Michelle and her partner Dale Richards, who is a punu artist, have three children and they live in Ernabella.
Mukayi Baker
Mukayi Baker was an Ernabella Anangu School teacher for many years. She retired in 2012 in order to look after family and paint at the Art Centre. Mukayi is now a full time painter and tjanpi weaver. She paints the important Piltati story from the western APY lands.
Mukayi’s paintings have been exhibited many times across Australia, including in Tjungu Warkarintja: Fifteen Years at Sabbia Gallery, Sydney, and in Family at Signal Point Regional Gallery, South Australia. Her art has been acquired for the collections at City of Melville, WA and University of Newcastle, NSW.
Mukayi is also a Ngangkari or traditional Anangu healer.
Tjulyata Kulyuru
Tjulyata is an early career artist who comes from a talented and respected family. Her father is the Ernabella pastor and her mother was a senior artist from the mission days who exceled in hand spinning natural wool and creating knitted garments. As a young girl Tjulyata used to come to the art centre and watch her mother doing batik work. Her aunt and both her sisters also painted at Ernabella Arts.
Tjulyata lives in Ernabella with her five young children. Since starting her art practise she has developed her own unique interpretation of tjukula (waterholes) which she depicts on both canvas and ceramics.
