A RECORD-BREAKING rock was the inspiration for a new exhibition by acclaimed Wadjarri artist Sonya Edney.

Located in the midwest Gascoyne region of WA, Mount Augustus is 2.5 times larger than Uluru and many claim it’s the largest rock in the world.

It has strong spiritual and cultural significance for the Wadjarri people, so Edney decided to make Mt Augustus (known as Burringurrah in the local Wadjarri language) the centrepiece of her new exhibition Burringurrah Dreaming.

• Sonya Edney’s exhibition is centred around Mt Augustus (left) in Burringurrah Country where she grew up.

“As an artist, I grew up in Burringurrah country, and I’ve been sketching and drawing most of my childhood,” she says.

“Being on this journey, as I got older, I paint about my life when I was a child out in the bush with my sisters and my brothers and my mother and my father and family all out there. 

“It was a good time. I think this is why I want to name the exhibition Burringurrah Dreaming, because it’s my dream, it’s my story, it’s my journey.”

Using vivid colours and fluid brush strokes, Edney transforms the remote Gascoyne region into an impressionistic dream, and it feels like you’re looking at swirling gas clouds on Jupiter or the inside of a lava lamp.

Wildflowers Blooming, Night Sky is particularly impressive – the purple and ochre giving way to wispy blue clouds and twinkling stars.

The artist expertly captured the transformative weather in the remote inland region – Warnah Buna – Big Rainstorm is awash with vibrant blues while Dry Waterhole has shifting shades of red and orange.

“As we were growing up in the bush we were told the story of the sacred mountain and the Burringurrah story,” Edney says.

“When there was a big storm approaching you would often see a dust storm first and sometimes thunder from the rock even though no clouds had yet appeared.

“The mount changes through many different colours from dark blues and purples, according to the spirit Dreaming of Burringurrah.

“Then when warnah buna, the thunderstorm, comes it fills up the rivers and creeks, floods the dry land and starts the wildflowers blooming across the country.”

According to the creation story of her Country, the ancestral young man Burringurrah ran away from Aboriginal law and was chased and punished by a spearing in the leg.

As he was running he dragged his fighting stick along the ground and this formed the rivers and creeks of the Upper Gascoyne. 

Born in 1974, Edney is a largely self-taught artist and started painting at home in the Burringurrah community.

Later she began a visual arts course at Carnarvon TAFE and was approached to teach art in the local schools for NAIDOC week. 

The artistic streak runs in the family – her late father Ernest, a dogger, was also a musician and Sonya plays instruments too. Edney has been based in Perth since 2018, when she struck up a creative partnership with Fremantle’s Japingka Gallery, a champion of Aboriginal art for more than 35 years.

In 2020 she went on a cultural trip to the Pilbara and Upper Gascoyne, where she visited places she had grown up with her family.

It reignited her creative spark and fostered a deeper appreciation of her homeland. 

Burringurrah Dreaming is at Japingka Gallery, 47 High St Fremantle until September 30. For more details see japingkaaboriginalart.com.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK