Warlapinni Freda

Freda Warlapinni lived at Milkapiti on Melville Island and painted for Jilamara Arts Centre. Despite taking up painting as a career later in life, she emerged as a skilled painter from decades of experience of body-painting during ceremonies. transferred her traditional skills to both canvas and printmaking, particularly specializing in lithographs through her collaboration with the Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne. Warlapinni's artwork gained recognition through numerous exhibitions. In Australia, her prints were featured in exhibitions such as 'Arukulunga Wunitaka Thelma - Cyclone Thelma' in 1999 and 'Island Images' in 2001. Internationally, her work was showcased in 'First Person Plural' at the Betty Rymer Gallery, and it was included in the Gantner-Myer Collection at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco in 1998. Her lithograph titled 'Body Painting no.1' was part of the '16th Asian International Art Exhibition' at the Guangdong Museum of Art in Guangzhou, China, in 2001. Additionally, her prints were exhibited in the traveling show 'People in a Landscape', which toured Germany, Russia, Switzerland, and Turkey between 2002 and 2003. In 2004, her work was featured in 'Explained II: A Closer Look at Aboriginal Art' at the AAMU Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Utrecht, Netherlands. Freda Warlapinni's artworks are held in several esteemed public collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Internationally, her pieces are part of the collection at the AAMU Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art in Utrecht and the Kerry Stokes Collection in Perth.