The National 2021 : New Australian Art

Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Australia for The National 2021 : New Australian Art, this epic piece by Betty Kuntiwa Pumani was created over a six month period in 2020 and is now held in the permanent collection at the MCA. Over the course of a decade, Pumani’s canvases have become larger and larger in scale, allowing her to explore Antara in ever more complexity and detail. Her work for The National 2021, measuring ten metres in length, is the culmination of Pumani’s expression of family, Country and interconnection. She describes her painting Antara (2020) as both a portrait of Country and of the generations of women who have passed vital cultural and environmental knowledge down for future generations. (Rachel Kent, 2021)