Eastern Desert Art is an outback Indigenous online art gallery representing the work of significant Aboriginal artists from the Urapuntja (Utopia) region in Central Australia. We specialise in contemporary Aboriginal art from the local Aylawarre and Anmatyerre people of this area.

Situated at Red Gum 270kms northeast of Alice Springs and just south of Arlparra, it is run by Sonja Chalmers. The Chalmers family’s relationship with the Aboriginal people extends back five generations and many of the Aboriginal artists who live on Urapuntja (Utopia) grew up alongside the Chalmers family. Eastern Desert Art runs regular painting workshops for the local artists at Red Gum.

Eastern Desert Art also collaborates with Tingari Arts to represent a broad range of Indigenous communities across the Eastern, Western and Central Deserts. Joint exhibitions are held in Australia and overseas. Tingari Arts run by Linx Macpherson, represents significant artists from the Gibson Desert WA, Haast Bluff and Harts Range, NT including Walala Tjapaltjarri, Thomas Tjapaltjarri, Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Molly Napaltjarri Jugadai and Josie Petrick.

We encourage you to visit now that we have opened The Mac and Rose Chalmers Conservation Reserve (Tower Rock) Australia’s newest and exclusive park. This Reserve is now open for bush camping and contains unique granite boulder outcrops encompassing 470 hectares of land. Host to a wide range of native plant species and wildlife, the Reserve is the ideal place for a back to nature experience.

In the first voluntary conservation agreement on pastoral land in the Northern Territory, Charlie Chalmers handed over Tower Rock on MacDonald Downs to National Parks and Wildlife Services, NT. This area – a unique granite boulder outcrop – encompasses 470 hectares (4.7 square kilometres) of land and is host to a wide range of native plant species and wildlife.

The Reserve also protects the gravesites of Charlie’s parents, Mac and Rose Chalmers. The Reserve is named the Mac and Rose Chalmers Conservation Park in honour of this couple who developed a passionate love of this land and had a close rapport with Alyawarre people of the area. During their lifetime they cared tirelessly for the well being of all the Aboriginal families as did Mac’s parents – Charles and Cora Chalmers before them. Mac Chalmers parents, pioneers Charles and Cora Chalmers arrived in 1923 to take up the MacDonald Downs pastoral lease – named after their two sons Mac and Don – after travelling overland from Mungindi NSW with their family of four. The trip took over two years and Mac was 10 years old when they arrived.

Mutual respect between the Chalmers and the Alyawarre was never more evident than when a letter, dictated by Lenny Kngwarreye Jones was read out at Mac’s funeral at Tower Rock in front of a crowd of over 200 of his people. The moving, heartfelt letter began, “The Chalmers family have looked after the Jones family……..” and ended, “……Thank you very much to the Chalmers family and goodbye to a great man. From Lenny and his people.”

Mac and Rose Chalmers Conservation Park presents an important and lasting legacy for present and future generations. According to the recent Conservation Management Plan and Wildlife Survey (Low Ecological Services):

‘The Mac and Rose Conservation Reserve has high conservation significance as well as high scientific, natural and aesthetic value. It is of historical importance and is valued by the Indigenous Alyawarr people and the pastoralist families who have settled in the area since the early 20th Century.’

The Reserve is now open to the public and they can access the reserve from the Binns Track.

Extract: A history of the community of Irrultja on Urapuntja (Utopia) written by a young student:

An extract from Irrultja Community HistoryBy Simon Ross

Old Chalmers came to the country Ntwarl. Mac Chalmers father. They stayed there. That old Chalmers man stayed there. My old man, Luck family, Lewis family and the Petyarr’s (Pitjara) family grandfathers saw them. They came from a long way. My fathers learnt about the white fellas food. They learnt to eat the meat, sugar and tea, tobacco.

The old men worked for the station people.

Then Old Chalmers shifted to Ayleylatherr, to Old MacDonald Downs. My family looked after the sheep. They worked for a long time, working for that old man. We ate that food and a lot of people gathered there from many places. We went for the abundant food, sugar and tobacco.

The old men worked for a long time. They had no children and then they had many children. There are a lot now. Many people were there. People who live at many places, Thelye as well. Many people stayed there and ate rations.

People came from a long way. The old man became weak and his son started working, old Mac Chalmers. He looked after the people as well, he gave them tucker and clothing. He looked after them.

Dreamtime is a theory of the Universe…

Part extract from Woodrow D. Denham, Alyawarra Ethnographic Archive

The Dreamtime is a description and an explanation of how it is that things are as they are, and a user’s manual for operating and maintaining the Universe in accordance with that description. It is the Law…This term which encompasses the entire conceptual system based on the (Altyerre) Dreamings and the churinga (sacred objects) is one of the world’s great conceptual systems, accommodating virtually the entire intellectual universe of its believers.

Dreaming (Altyerre) refers to a set of beliefs or spirituality. It is the law of religion and social behaviours, the land and the spiritual forces sustaining life. The Dreamings are passed down to the younger men and women through sacred ceremonies. Dreaming stories explain the concept of matter and life.

According to traditional belief, the stories were created a very long time ago during the Dreamtime period or creation time by the spiritual Creation Ancestors. It was during this time that day, sky, stars, fire, air, water, land and all life was created. The Spiritual Ancestors took all manner of forms including human, plant and animal. During the Dreamtime period the Ancestors travelled all over the land performing ceremonies and singing. In the desert region of central Australia the Ancestors left their spirit in objects (churinga) of wood and stone and sites which are sacred to the initiated men. This system of beliefs is known as the Altyerre, to the Anmatyarre and to the Alyawarre people of the Central Desert region.

Dreaming sites are places where Dreamtime beings ‘jumped up’ or created waterholes and other features, or ‘went down’ into the ground again. These places are very specific spots on the ground that can be plotted clearly on topographic maps. Each Dreaming site contains a collection of objects left there by the Dreamtime being who stopped there.

Dreamtime stories are passed down through the generations through ceremonies during which the women’s bodies are painted in linear strokes of ochres and white and the stories are sung to the initiates. This is called making Awelye and contemporary women painters like Susan, Annie and Jessie Pitjara Hunter, Joy Kngwarreye Jones, Thelma Pitjara Long explore these sacred body marks through abstraction in their painting.

On the other hand the Anmatyarre and Alyawarre men such as Sandy Pitjara Hunter, Freddy Kngwarreye Jones and Cowboy Louie Pwerle represent their dreaming in strong iconographic and geometric ceremonial paintings which are like identical transfers of the ground markings used during the men’s ceremonies. These large ceremonial ground paintings made from earth-pigments are sacred and have provided the model for polymer acrylic paintings on canvas. The artists have transferred their sacred dreaming ground designs from the ephemeral to the tangible.

Urapuntja (Utopia) is an Aboriginal freehold property formed in November 1978, approximately 250 km northeast of Alice Springs. A former cattle station, it was sold back to the government in 1975 and handed back to the traditional owners – the Anmatyerre and Alyawarre people. It covers an area of 3,500 square kilometres, transected by the Sandover River, and lies on a traditional boundary of the Alyawarra and Anmatyarre people, the two language groups which predominate there today.

Approximately 800 Anmatyarre and Alyawarre people (their close relatives) live on outstations or camps on the western side of the Sandover River on Urapuntja (Utopia). These include Atneltye (Boundary Bore), Lyentye (Mosquito Bore), Atnarare – (Soakage Bore), Arawerre (Soapy Bore), Irrweltyr, Ingkwelaye (Kurrajong Bore), Ahalpere Store, Ankerrapw (Utopia Homestead) and Artekerre (Three Bores, Camel Camp).

A community-owned store together with the council offices makes up a municipal centre at the largest outstation, Arlparra. Five small schools are distributed among the outstations, and a bus provides transportation to children who do not live at one of these.

A medical clinic is staffed by a doctor, several nurses and a group of local health workers. The clinic delivers most of its services at the outstations by way of a schedule of weekly visits. Funding of essential services is provided by direct Commonwealth grants to the Aboriginal Corporation via the Community Council and the Health Council. The Northern Territory Government provides the educational infrastructure and budgets.