Malya Teamay is an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

. He is also an administrator of

Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park is a protected area in the Northern Territory of Australia. The park is home to both Uluru and Kata Tjuta. It is located south of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin by road and south-west of Alice Springs al ...

, serving as a member of its Board of Management. As an artist, Teamay works for Walkatjara Art Uluṟu. This art centre is part of the Uluṟu–Kata Tjuṯa Cultural Centre located inside the national park. Examples of Teamay's paintings are held in the

Queensland Gallery of Modern Art The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) is an art museum located within the Queensland Cultural Centre in the South Bank precinct of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The gallery is part of QAGOMA. Opened on 2 December 2006, the GOMA is Australia's l ...

, and the

Museum of Victoria Museums Victoria is an organisation that includes a number of museums and related bodies in Melbourne. These include Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, Scienceworks, IMAX Melbourne, a research institute, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Roya ...

. Teamay was born in 1947, at

Curtin Springs Curtin Springs, formerly Mount Conner Station, is a pastoral lease operating as a cattle station in the Central Australia, Alice Springs region of the Northern Territory of Australia. Geography Occupying an area of , the working cattle statio ...

, a cattle

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

in the southwest of the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. His family was

Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are v ...

. He grew up at

Uluṟu Uluru (; ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone monolith. It crops out near the centre of Australia in the southern part of the Northern Territory, south-west of Alice Springs. Ul ...

, Areyonga and

Ernabella Pukatja (formerly Ernabella, ) is an Aboriginal community in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia, comprising one of the six main communities on "The Lands" (the others being Amata, Pipalyatjara, Fregon/Kaltjiti ...

. He worked as a stockman for most of his early life. Teamay moved to Muṯitjulu after it was established in the mid-1980s. He began painting soon after, originally as a way of telling others about the history of his people. His first painting was about the problem of

petrol sniffing Gasoline (North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When formul ...

. He has made several different versions of this painting since. Like most other artists from this region, Teamay also paints the ' associated with his country. These are stories about his spiritual ancestors from the

Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology. It was originally u ...

and their journeys across the land. Teamay's paintings focus on the Seven Sisters, and the Liru and Kuniya Dreamings. His work ''Tjukurpa of Uluṟu'' is pictured on the admission tickets to the park. It depicts the spiritual law associated with Uluṟu. The other subjects he commonly paints are stories from the

Australian gold rush During the Australian gold rushes, starting in 1851, significant numbers of workers moved from elsewhere in Australia and overseas to where gold had been discovered. Gold had been found several times before, but the colonial government of Ne ...

, social problems faced by his community, and the effects of destructive habits on the environment. Malya is a very active member of the Aboriginal community and has travelled widely around Australia to speak on Anangu issues. He has also served as the

chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

of the Nyangatjatjara Aboriginal Corporation, which governs employment, educational and economic opportunities for Aboriginal people in the southwestern Northern Territory.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Teamay, Malya 1947 births Living people Australian painters Indigenous Australian artists Artists from the Northern Territory Pitjantjatjara people Australian stockmen