Grace Kemarre Robinya has been named the winner of the 2021 Vincent Lingiari Art Award for her painting 'Raining at Laramba'.
The Anmattyarre / Arrernte artist beat 25 other finalists to claim the prize which comes with $10,000.
Raining at Laramba depicts Country around Napperby Station, where Ms Robinya and her husband worked and raised their family. Residents in Napperby are still forced to drink water that contains three times the level of uranium considered safe.
“It’s always raining, summertime, when stockmen mustering. Makes those hills look blue in the north. Raining, raining, all the time raining. Clouds are coming,” Ms Robinya said on her winning painting.
Judge Hetti Perkins commended Ms Robinya’s painting for responding powerfully to the award’s theme Ngawa, Ngapa, Kapi, Kwatja, Water.
The theme asked Aboriginal artists to reflect on their individual and collective battles for water rights.
“The work stood out as an unequivocal, elegant and profound statement about Kwatye. It captures the dramatic vistas of rain in desert country and conveys the transformative and life-giving power of water,” Ms Perkins said.
Ms Robinya is an accomplished figurative painter whose works frequently feature her signature clouds with sheets of rain.
Grace Kemarre Rohinya's winning painting 'Raining at Laramba'. Source: Supplied: Central Land Council
Her work has been included in 55 exhibitions, and she has been a finalist in five significant awards, including the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.
The exhibition opening at the Tangentyere Artists Gallery in Alice Springs runs until the 13th October and features a walk-through gallery of all of the finalists.
