Biography

Wergaia / Djupagulk Gunditj / Tatiara, b. 1970 Jackie Wirramanda is a Victorian Indigenous multidisciplinary artist working across painting, ceramics, jewellery and textiles. She is of Wergaia and Djupagulk Gunditj descent from north-western Victoria, with Tatiara ancestry from South Australia on her mother’s side. She is currently based in Chinkapook, Central Victoria. Her paintings are closely connected to Lake Tyrrell, a significant ancestral site in north-western Victoria. Dreaming & Country: Walking on Country / Lake Tyrrell Jackie’s main painting subject is Walking on Country, centred on Lake Tyrrell and the surrounding salt lake country. The works refer to soakage sites, clan gathering places, paths, journey lines and ancestral connection to the lake. Some works also incorporate references to dillybags and weaving, linking the paintings to women’s knowledge and material practice. Style and Technique Jackie’s paintings are built through layered dotting, fine linear pathways and repeated circular forms that create a sense of movement across the salt lake surface. Her compositions often feel aerial, as though viewing Country from above, with journey lines, gathering places and water traces held within a dense field of pattern. There is a particular delicacy to her surface. The marks can read as salt crystals, reflected light, shallow water, wind movement or the residue of dried lake beds. Rather than mapping Country in a hard geometric way, Jackie’s work has a softer, more atmospheric quality, translating Lake Tyrrell into rhythm, shimmer and layered memory. Jackie’s Palette Jackie uses a broad palette drawn from the changing conditions of Lake Tyrrell: salt whites, ochres, pinks, mauves, blues, violets and darker grounds. The palette reflects the lake’s capacity to shift colour with water, salt, sky and surrounding earth. For the Collector Jackie Wirramanda’s work is represented by galleries including Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery and Indigo Galleries. She was a finalist in the 2018 Indigenous Ceramic Award at Shepparton Art Museum, and has exhibited at The Lume Melbourne. Her work was included in Salt Lake Country at Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, in 2025.