Winmati Roberts

Winmati Roberts was born in 1957 at the Umuwa rock hole, in the northern Spinifex Country on the border between Western Australia and South Australia.

As a young man Winmati Roberts worked on the ‘bore program’, which sought to allow aboriginal peoples to ‘return to country’ by sinking bore-holes, and erecting wind-pumps in remote locations in northern South Australia.

He was educated in the lore and traditions of his country by his father and uncle, and became a guardian of the Wati Kutjara ‘Dreaming’ or Tjukurpa for the land around Pukara, one of the most important and far-reaching stories in Spinfex tradition.

In his picture Tjara (Combat Shield) Roberts draws on millennia of Spinifex cultural knowledge to portray both the form and symbolism of these sacred artefacts. Historically, young boys would watch as their fathers cut slabs from certain designated hard-wooed trees and fashioned them with precious stone tools. The men would then incise totemic motifs on the face of the shields to proclaim their ownership. 

Winmati Roberts has exhibited internationally in Germany, Singapore and the UK. His work is held in Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.