Yaritji Young

Yaritji Young is a Pitjantjatjara woman who was born in the bush near Pukatja Creek (Ernabella) in the A?angu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in South Australia. She is a highly respected senior artist and community leader.

Yaritji is the daughter of the great artist Mick Wikilyiri, and the eldest of the Ken Sisters - Tjungkara Ken, Freda Brady, Maringka Tunkin and Sandra Ken - who are renowned for their individual practices as well as their award-winning collaborative works.

Yaritji has been painting at Tjala Arts since 2000 and has also worked for and exhibited with the Tjanpi Desert Weavers. As a weaver, her style is very creative, and she has made a wide variety of humorous objects such as small trucks and camp crockery. Yaritji also collaborated on the striking 'Seven Sisters' weaving which was acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Her expressive, colourful painting style is easily recognisable and very much sought after by public and private collectors. She paints the rock holes and landmarks of her Country, entwined with icons and traditional marks that relate to inma (dance) and Tjukurpa.

Yaritji is a traditional owner for Tjala Tjukurpa (honey ant story). Using the bright colours of the desert, she paints the twisting lines and shapes made by the tjala (honey ant). The artist's knowledge of how to collect the honey ants and the stories associated with them have been passed down from her father and her grandparents and she in turn is passing them down to her family.

Yaritji is a multi-time finalist in Australia's most important national Indigenous and landscape awards. In 2016 Yaritji and her sisters won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 2018 the sisters won the People's Choice category at the National Aboriginal & Tores Strait Islander Art Award, and in 2019 Yaritji was invited by Australian Consulate General in Los Angeles to participate in a major exhibition of her paintings that were later exhibited at Olsen Gruin, New York.

Yaritji lives in Amata, located roughly 115km south of Uluru (Ayers Rock) in South Australia.

Copyright Kate Owen Gallery, March 2024