Betty Sumner

“I am a Raukkan Ngarrindjeri Mimini all the way from Tiddingi Sandhills. I am also a singer, storyteller, actor, artist, painter and a Ngarrindjeri Cultural Weaver.”

 

Betty Sumner studied Anthropology at the University of Adelaide and has worked across theatre, film, stage design and opera in a creative career spanning 30 years. Her current creative explorations involve silk painting, acrylic painting, cultural weaving, sculpture and storytelling.

Betty Sumner was commissioned in 2016 to create new work for the Alexandrina’s Council South Coast Aquatic Centre in Hayborough, SA, entitled ‘The All-Seeing Eye’, a woven object combining Ngarrindjeri cultural weaving techniques with abstract art and social commentary.

For the inaugural Ngarrindjeri Culture Hub exhibition in 2017 she produced a triptych painting on canvas, as a reflection on her famous painting, ‘The Protectors’.

Betty Sumner works and lives in the Ngarrindjeri community of Raukkan, South Australia.

‘Ngarrindjeri Yunnan Yarluwar Ruwe - Ngarrindjeri Speaking For Sea-Country’ connects works from emerging and established Ngarrindjeri artists, across cultural practices and modern art forms, including paintings, carvings, pottery, woven sculptures, silk prints and digital works. The group show featured Moogy’s Yuki, the first Ngarrindjeri bark canoe made on Ngarrindjeri/ Boandik country in over 150 years, a large woven sculpture of Kondoli the Whale, and the first showing of exciting new work by celebrated artist Damien Shen and upcoming painter Cedric Varcoe. The show also included the Ngarrindjeri Culture Hub website launch and premiere of the second season of the mini-series ‘Everything is Connected’, co-created with award-winning SA film maker Johanis Lyons-Reid. Season One screens on ABC iView and won the prestigious International Melbourne WebFest award for Best Australian Factual Miniseries 2016 and was shortlisted as finalist at the South Australian Screen Awards 2016. Exhibiting Artists in the 2017 exhibition: Ellen Trevorrow and Ngarrindjeri weavers, Major Sumner, Jack Stengle, Bluey Roberts, Betty Sumner, Lyn Lovegrove Niemz, Damien Shen, Cedric Varcoe, and Change Media in collaboration with the Ngarrindjeri Media team. The exhibition has been co-curated by Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell, Ngarrindjeri elders Ellen Trevorrow and Major Sumner, and the participating Ngarrindjeri artists. Looking forward to see you there. Nukkan! This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, and by the South Australian Government through Arts SA. © 2017 Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority and Change Media