Betty Carrington

Betty was born on Texas Downs, but grew up with her family at the old Turkey Creek Post Office (now the Warmun Art Centre) and Police Station. Betty’s father was a police tracker and her family lived there until the police station closed, when they moved back to Texas Downs. Betty worked on Texas as a housekeeper, and remembers the long hours of hard work. She worked at everything from chopping wood, clearing rocks from roads, cooking, scrubbing floors, to going out bush for a “killer” (Bullock to kill) and butchering the beasts. Betty has travelled extensively throughout Australia representing Kimberley and Gija people in dance and cultural festivals in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. She started painting in 1998 when Warmun Art Centre was established by the leading members of the Warmun Community. Betty’s painting style is delicate and soft – she uses a large range of subtle ochre mixes but the soft and feminine style often underlies strong and painful stories of historical events in the East Kimberley. One recurring visual reference in Betty’s paintings are the rolling hills which depict her fathers country, Darragyn (Springvale Station). Betty also paints landscapes from her mother’s country, Texas Downs Station; Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) places and historical events – post white settlement – the Mistake Creek massacre and the Warmun gymkhana where Aboriginal people working on Texas Downs station were first introduced to alcohol. Betty and her partner Patrick Mung Mung, are constant figures at the Warmun Art Centre teaching, by example the younger members of their talented extended family the Ngarrankarni (Dreaming) stories and techniques to master the medium of natural ochres. She is sister to the late Hector Jandany.