Iris Taylor

Iris was born at Areyonga, about 250km west of Alice Springs. Areyonga is nestled in a valley flanked by 300 metre high ranges, with ghost gums dotted throughout the creek beds. The people of Areyonga are of the Pitjantjatjara tribal group with a few Arrernte and Warlpiri who have joined the Community through marriage. Iris’s language was Pitjantjatjara. She had 2 sisters who are also painters. Iris went to school in Areyonga and then when she got older she attended Yirrara College in Alice Springs. It was here she learnt more about art through charcoal sketching and also landscape painting. After she left school she returned to Areyonga. Iris married and had 2 children, a son and a daughter, she also had an adopted son. She began to paint on silk at the women’s centre in Areyonga. Iris later lived in Alice Springs where she went into Ngurratjuta Art Centre and painted. She liked to paint works that depicted bush tucker and traditional gathering methods. In more recent times she began to paint landscapes in a naïve style. These works draw on her memories of childhood and her frequent bush trips also inform these landscapes. Many of her paintings show a modern form of transport – cars, trucks, helicopters or planes – that contrast strongly with the ancient landscape with hills ceremonially painted up like women’s breasts. Iris passed away in February 2012.