Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty

Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty is a Wadjigan woman and was born at Tennant Creek in 1972. Helen comes from Bulgul country in the western Wagait area of the Top End (around a two and a half hour drive south west of Darwin) and her ancestors are from saltwater country. Helen's language is Batjamal and her totem is the mud crab. After spending most of her childhood at Nauiyu Nambiyu Community (Daly River), Helen completed her education at Mount St Bernard College at Herberton on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland.

Helen studied teaching, initially at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Education in the N.T. and completing her degree at Deakin University in 1994. It was during this time at university that Helen's art career started to take shape. In 1993, she was already involved in her first art festival. Her painting continued to develop after moving into teaching full time.

For 10 years she successfully combined a job as a teacher in remote communities with her painting activities. Around 2003, Helen devoted herself to painting full time, gradually honing her skills and developing her own unique approach to the Dreamings she portrays. 2006 marked a significant milestone in Helen's career, with her inaugural solo exhibition in Sydney, quickly followed by further solo and group exhibitions in Melbourne and Singapore.

In August 2007, Helen was honoured to receive the People's Choice Award at the 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award for her painting Tyemeny Liman's Wutinggi (Grandpa Harry's Canoe). She says of her grandfather "In his day he was the best canoe maker in his country. It's a sad story and a good story at the same time. It's the last canoe that he ever made." Helen was also a finalist at the 2008 Telstra Awards. Helen's artistic prowess found global acclaim when she was commissioned to create the stage backdrop for the Oprah Winfrey Show's Australian filming in 2011.

Despite a brief hiatus, her creative spirit was reignited upon returning to her childhood home, Daly River, in 2015. The return to her roots and to Country was the catalyst for an immense surge of creative output, as witnessed in her two solo exhibitions at Kate Owen Gallery in 2016. The following year, Helen appeared as a finalist in prestigious art prizes such as the Paddington Art Prize, the Georges River Art Prize, and was awarded the inaugural Margaret Olley Art Award at the Mosman Art Prize.

Between 2017 and 2020 Helen lived in Alice Springs, Darwin, Daly River and Sydney. Her artworks during this time exquisitely demonstrate her ability to find inspiration all around her. Accolades continued to follow, and in 2020 she was awarded the Aboriginal Art Winner at the 2020 Fisher's Ghost Art Award. Her painting titled 'New Growth - After the Fire' was in response to the devastating bush fires that swept across the country.

The global pandemic saw Helen spend more time at home and with family. It was also the flourishing of the Bulgul Artists, an informal collective of family and friends from Bulgul and surrounding regions in the Top End. While the collective can trace its origins back to 2003 when Helen first started painting, the success of Helen and her sister Kerry McCarthy inspired others to take up Aboriginal art as a career, or to revive dormant careers.

The Bulgul Artists art studio is a hive of creativity and culture, and Helen enjoys mentoring, encouraging and supporting her fellow family members as they develop their art careers. The collective has also been a perfect channel for the next generation to connect and process their growing understanding of culture, community, family, and identity, as Helen's son and emerging artist Heath Minjin Wilson, is a testament to.

Helen has a relentless passion to learn all she can about culture and country from her elders, as well as the ability to effectively communicate through her art using an array of styles, intricate dotting and delicate brushwork techniques, abstract imagery, bold colour use and intuitive interplays with space and form. Her art can be multi-layered, complex and colourful, or it can be restrained, solemn and occasionally ominous. Her work resonates with a timeless yet contemporary allure, making her highly appealing to international collectors.

Helen explains that she finds inspiration all around her; in her deep connection to country, in the traditional practices associated with a life living bush and in her incredible family stories. Helen's connection to Country and culture combined with her non-indigenous education are the foundations she uses to express her ideas and experiences in her own unique manner. This capacity to give contemporary interpretations to her ancient Dreaming stories makes her a distinct voice in the contemporary Indigenous art scene today. Through her unwavering commitment to preserving culture and fostering artistic expression, Helen McCarthy Tyalmuty continues to chart new horizons and inspire generations to come.

Copyright Kate Owen Gallery, May 2024