Date of Birth: 4th September 1986
Region: Katherine, NT/Adelaide, SA / New Zealand
Language: Gurindji/Wanyi
Tarisse King was born in Adelaide, South Australia on the 4th September 1986. She is the older sister to fellow artist, Sarrita King and daughter to the late highly regarded artist, William King Jungala (1966 – 2007).
Tarisse inherits her Australian Aboriginality from her father who was part of the Gurindji tribe from the Northern Territory. The Gurindji tribe came to public attention during the 1960s and 1970s when members employed by the Wave Hill cattle station led a landmark case which became the first successful land rights claim in Australia. Like her forefathers, Tarisse is an assertive individual who is determined to communicate the inseparable connection she and her ancestors have with the Australian land.
Tarisse spent the majority of her youth in Darwin, a unique city subject to extreme weather conditions, from torrential rain and cyclones in the wet season, to oppressive and immobilising heat in the dry season. This climatic impact is depicted in her artwork, but it was also the road trips she travelled between Darwin, Katherine and Adelaide, where her father resided, that she reflects on most in her paintings. The journey of 3027 kilometres right through the heart of Australia reveals extreme expanses of varying landscapes and provided Tarisse with the isolation and time to develop a unique perception of the land which can be seen in her paintings, such as Pink Salts and My Country.
Moving to Adelaide at the age of 16, it was her involvement with her father’s art that lead Tarisse to experiment with her own designs and techniques, resulting in a definable style of her own. Drawing from the central and western desert style of painting, where a dotting technique maps the land topographically, Tarisse captures a complex and varied soul of the land.
In homage to her father, her adaptation of ‘Earth Images’ defines Australia as if looking from outer space back to land. Again with an aerial view her series, ‘My Country’, composes 40,000 year old Aboriginal iconography of song lines, dots and circles to create a bold and contemporary aesthetic, providing yet another more detailed perspective of the landscape. Finally, in her series ‘Pink Salts’ she immerses the viewer in the surreal and luminous pink sunsets over the great salt lakes in the centre of Australia. In all of Tarisse’s artworks, she contemporises the ancient and allows the present day viewer an accessible moment to consider the past.
Tarisse currently lives in New Zealand and has three young daughters. She makes the journey from New Zealand to Darwin regularly to paint with her sister Sarrita; their collaboration works are integral to their family heritage. Her works have been included in over 20 exhibitions, is represented in galleries in every Australian state, and is included in many high profile Australian and international art collections. Her works have been auctioned successfully through Paris’ Art Curial and she completed a European exhibition tour in 2010.