Curtis Taylor: On the cusp

I started out making art in high school in Perth and Port Hedland with stories from events from the previous weekends going fishing hunting hanging out with friends: this was for art class. I grew up in Bidyadanga Karrajarri Warran: a lot of different language groups now call Bidyadanga home. My family’s group Yulaparija Mangala and Warnman speakers reside on saltwater Country, living in diaspora in Bidyadanga. I spent a lot of time going back and forth from ‘Bidya’ to Punmu and Parnngurr, home of my nyarmi (grandmother) and nyarmu (grandfather) on my paternal side, it’s their traditional Country. Today I stand on the shoulders of these giants. They gave me the licence to explore the stories within our boundaries of our home Country. From my beginnings I’ve been working with film recordings, first contact oral histories, contemporary community fiction and Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories from my grandparents and the wider community of Martu people.

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In the rapidly expanding literature on the Tennant Creek Brio, writers have touched upon a decidedly ‘masculine’ quality in the group’s work. John McDonald calls the Brio’s work ‘incredibly aggressive’ and ‘raw’ and ‘wild.’ Erica Izett, the Brio’s regular curator and greatest advocate, refers to their work as a form of insurgent ‘guerrilla theatre.’ These masculinist tendencies should be of little surprise. The Brio started in 2016 as an art therapy group as part of Strong Men, Strong Families through funding from the Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation facilitated by painter Rupert Betheras. It grew to have about twenty men involved before moving to the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre in 2017, where it was declared an artist collective.

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