Pulya Taylor (born 1931) is an

Aboriginal art Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, ro ...

ist from central Australia. She makes wooden objects, known in the Western Desert as '. She makes these by

carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and y ...

the wood and then

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design on a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ar ...

patterns (') into its surface with a burning wire. This technique is called

pokerwork Pyrography or pyrogravure is the free handed art of decorating wood or other materials with burn marks resulting from the controlled application of a heated object such as a poker. It is also known as pokerwork or wood burning. The term means ...

. The wood she uses is sourced locally from the area around

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 ...

, where she lives. Taylor was born and grew up around Walytjatjata, in the southwest corner 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 ...

. She began working in arts and crafts at

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 ...

in the late 1940s. She later moved to Amaṯa with her husband, Tony Tjamiwa. In 1983, Taylor and Tjamiwa, together with Topsy Tjulyata, Walter Pukutiwara, Peter Yates and Pat D'Arango, travelled around artist communities in the

Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands Aṉangu is the name used by members of several Aboriginal Australian groups, roughly equivalent to the Western Desert cultural bloc, to describe themselves. The term, which embraces several distinct "tribes" or peoples, in particular the Ngaa ...

. This was to discuss the idea of setting up a new craft centre at Uluṟu, which would sell artworks from around the region to tourists. The couple moved to Muṯitjulu so that they could help set it up. Taylor was one of the first artists for Maṟuku Arts, and she is still an executive member. Taylor is probably best known for her sculptures of animals, such as birds,

numbat The numbat (''Myrmecobius fasciatus''), also known as the noombat or walpurti, is an insectivorous marsupial. It is diurnal and its diet consists almost exclusively of termites. The species was once widespread across southern Australia, but i ...

s, snakes, the

echidna Echidnas (), sometimes known as spiny anteaters, are quill-covered monotremes (egg-laying mammals) belonging to the Family (biology), family Tachyglossidae , living in Australia and New Guinea. The four Extant taxon, extant species of echidnas ...

, and the

perentie The perentie (''Varanus giganteus'') is a species of monitor lizard. It is one of the largest living lizards on earth, after the Komodo dragon, Asian water monitor, and the crocodile monitor. Found west of the Great Dividing Range in the arid ar ...

lizard. The animals all have spiritual ' legends attached to them, and each represents a different

creation Creation or The Creation or Creations, may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Creation'' (1922 film), a British silent drama * ''Creation'' (unfinished film), 1931 * ''Creation'' (2009 film), about Charles Darwin Literature * ''Creation ...

ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from ...

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 ...

. Taylor's work has been exhibited in many places around Australia. It has also been shown overseas, including at the

Commonwealth Institute The Commonwealth Education Trust was a registered charity established in 2007 as the successor trust to the Commonwealth Institute. The trust focuses on primary and secondary education and the training of teachers and invests on educational pr ...

in London, in 2000. Examples of her work are held in the

Powerhouse Museum The Powerhouse Museum, formerly known as the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS), is a collection of 4 museums in Sydney, owned by the Government of New South Wales. Powerhouse is a contemporary museum of applied arts and sciences, explori ...

in Sydney, the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

, and the

National Museum of Australia The National Museum of Australia (NMA), in the national capital Canberra, preserves and interprets Australia's social history, exploring the key issues, people and events that have shaped the nation. It was formally established by the ''Nation ...

References

:''This article includes text from th
Powerhouse Museum, Australia
which has been licensed under

CC BY-SA A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...

.''

External links

Pulya Tjamiwa Taylor
at ''Prints and Printmaking'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Pulya Living people 20th-century Australian sculptors Australian woodworkers Indigenous Australian artists Pitjantjatjara people 1931 births 21st-century Australian sculptors Women woodworkers 21st-century woodworkers Australian women sculptors 20th-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian women sculptors 21st-century women sculptors