Robert Puruntatameri
Rangani, 2024
Woodfired stoneware, celadon glaze with iron oxide painting

Robert’s work has been deeply influenced by the history and events surrounding the establishment of Australia’s oldest Indigenous studio pottery by his father, the pioneering Tiwi potter Eddie Puruntatameri, often referred to as the ‘father of Indigenous Australian Studio Pottery’.

Though Eddie trained Robert's elder brother Cecil to take over the pottery, when both Eddie and Cecil tragically died in September 1995, the directorship of the pottery then fell onto Robert’s young shoulders.

Robert’s father, Eddie, had been heavily influenced by historic English ceramic pioneer Michael Cardew, a partner of the iconic figure Bernard Leach. This was the group that reinvigorated english ceramics by looking to the East and introducing woodfired stoneware of simplicity made by hand on the potter’s wheel from materials in the immediate environment. They followed the Arts & Crafts movement of the 1920s in which simple objects made by hand, including domestic utensils, clothes, and food, were celebrated. Michael Cardew was to come to Australia as figurehead of the first aboriginal pottery - a communal enterprise in Darwin in the 1960s. It was here that Eddie learnt to love woodfired pots which he threw by hand on the potter’s wheel, and eventually he was to take this skill back with him to Bathurst Island and set up his own pottery with the aid of Ivan McMeekin, a cohort of Cardew. When Robert began to take over the pottery, he was assisted by John Bosco Tipiloura. By this stage Eddie had moved the pottery to Pirlangimpi, Melville Island. Bosco moved to Pirlangimpi for a period to sit beside him teaching by demonstration. Under his guidance, Robert developed his own approach as a ceramicist, continuously exploring connections to the early stoneware traditions of his father.

Robert was shortlisted for the inaugural Australian Indigenous Ceramic Art Award at the Shepparton Art Gallery in 2007; in 2010, his works were included in the exhibition Arampini: Artists from the Tiwi Islands at the National Art School, Sydney; and in 1995, his ceramics were shown at Janet Mansfield’s prestigious Ceramic Art and Perception Gallery in Sydney.

Twice appointed artist-in-residence at the National Art School in Sydney, Robert’s ceramics are in the collections of the Lismore Regional Gallery, the National Museum of Australia, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum), and Shepparton Art Gallery.

Following a bout of life-threatening illness, and with the Pirlangimpi pottery undergoing restoration, Robert created this significant work in the Grafton NSW studio of master potter Geoff Crispin.

Curator’s Statement

Following the 2023 workshop at Geoff Crispin Pottery in Grafton, these sixteen celadon vessels were reassembled and grouped by Robert Puruntatameri to form a remarkable single work. It is a visual statement about Rangani, his own lands. Robert Puruntatameri is the Traditional Owner of Rangani, and in his own words, ‘I am Rangani’. His own Tiwi family is represented in each vessel, with their identities elegantly painted to signify the animal, fish, or bird persona, their song or dance. Robert Puruntatameri is determined and hopeful that this work will remain as one for the future.

- Jennifer Isaacs, 2024