From the paintbrush

Chirs Adnam’s ‘Mintji’ art exhibition will open at Surfcoast Gallery in Torquay later this month.

Mintji’ is a Yolngu word loosely translated to mean ‘sacred song from the paintbrush’, and for didgeridoo player, artist, writer and surfer Chris Adnam, his exhibition ‘Mintji’ is just that; a blend of art, music, history and stories of life lived.

Each artwork in the exhibition is accompanied by a song from Adnam’s album Ocean Cowboy, co-written and produced by Peter Cupples, who will be playing at the exhibition’s opening along with Lisa Edwards.

“It’s my life, my journey, my songbook,” Adnam said, of the exhibition which officially opens on Sunday, March 27.

“Traditionally, this style of painting has been painted for a hundred thousand years, you can go into a gallery in Darwin, sit there quietly and an old man will go up to a painting and he’ll start singing at it, because inside the paintings are songs.”

“It’s difficult for non-Aboriginal people to even understand the genius or the gist of that.”

In the early 1990s Adnam was adopted by the Yolngu people in North East Arnhem land, where he lived for six years.

“I was very fortunate to go into this area and it gave me an absolute curiosity to go okay ‘what are our stories? What is our art?’.

“We have an older history than anywhere else in the world.

“The first creation story which comes out of Australia is the story of the Djang’kawu sisters and that was the beginning of the Yolngu people.

“I was one of the handful of people who went to Yalangbaraand and saw the sacred place Balma with my own eyes … the first contact point for Indigenous people.”

Adnam was particularly fascinated by the three stone canoes embedded on the beach in Yalangbaraand, where the three sisters landed from Sulawesi, and reflects this the Djang’kawu series at the exhibition.

“For a hundred thousand years these Djang’kawu sisters have been celebrated by song and painting.

“It came from body art originally … and then it was transferred from the body on to the bark and then from the bark on to the art, and that’s called Mintji.”

Other paintings in the exhibition, such as his Ned Kelly series, draw together reflections on history as well as fascinations he developed earlier in life around the coast, bush, music and poetry.

“I had the biggest backyard in the world, and I developed an affinity with the bush.

“I started painting at 14, 15, and by 19 I was a published author, a book called
A childhood on Wonga.

“It brought back the whole history of the Wurundjeri, because there was nothing in school except Captain Cook, and I thought I’m walking round the bush and there’s all these stone arrangements and canoes trees, it is very rich in history.”

It was from this he was invited to Arnhem Land, and was taught to play the didgeridoo by Yothu Yindi band members.

He quickly went on to become a well-renowned musician, touring with Shirley Strachan, Jimmy Barnes and Peter Cupples and in the 1990s won gold at the Tamworth music festival.

Peter Cupples and Lisa Edwards will be performing at the exhibition’s opening on the Sunday, March 27 at 5pm, alongside the artist meet and greet where Adnam will tell more of the histories and stories behind each work.

Limited tickets to the opening are available through Trybooking.