Design and Art Australia Online

Isabel Dingaman Taylor, Indigenous artist, was born in 1952 in Roxby Downs, South Australia. Her father Edgar Dingaman was a Kokatha man who held the title of Senior Lawman with authority over Kokatha issues. Her mother Millie Taylor (nee Lennon) was a descendant of the Antikirinya peoples through her mother, and also had connections with the Yankuntjatjara, Pitjantjatjara and Arrernte peoples through her grandmother. When she was a child Taylor’s family lived in Kokatha country: Roxby Downs, Woomera and the Adamooka Opal Fields as well as pastoral stations in the region. She recalls that they sometimes travelling between these places by a camel drawn 'jinker’ (cart). In the 'Ripples in the Sand’ catalogue, Taylor writes that 'A great part of my childhood days were spent playing and rolling down beautiful red sand hills from Andamooka to Roxby Downs. Our camping spots were always surrounded by trees, sand hills and plenty of water holes to swim in’ (in Wright 2008, pg. 10). In the early 1960s the family settled in Port Augusta, where Taylor was still based in 2009. In 1989 her mother and sister (Colleen) taught her to place her dots correctly in a dot painting produced at the Kungka Tjukuta Ngura (Women’s Centre), which Taylor managed for a time. Since the 1980s, Taylor has explored a range of artistic mediums, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, pottery, lino and silk screen printing and glass work.

Exhibitions have included the 2006, 2007 and 2008 'Our Mob ' exhibitions at the Adelaide Festival Centre, 'Yarta Arts’ at the Arkaba Woolshed in the Flinders Ranges (2006), and 'My Life Stories’ at Fountain Gallery in Port Augusta (2007). In 2008 she was a participating artist in the 'ARID’ Sculpture Project at the Arid Lands Botanic Gardens, and was included in the exhibition 'Ripples in the Sand’ at the Port Augusta Cultural Centre Gallery, which was commissioned for the inaugural Yarnballa Cultural Festival in Port Augusta. Her paintings draw on her experiences from childhood to adulthood, as well as her knowledge of and sense of attachment to elements of the natural world. She also depicts the Tjukurpa of her ancestors, including the perentie (monitor lizard) and gulda, the old sleepy lizard, which as Taylor writes in the 'Ripples in the Sand’ catalogue, 'is the guardian of the “big sickness”(uranium) and his role is to keep Aboriginal people away from that area to keep them from getting sick’ (in Wright 2008, pg. 4). Roxby Downs, Woomera and the surrounding area have been significant uranium mining sites for decades, and in the late 1950s and early 1960s Aboriginal people suffered severe health effects from British nuclear testing at Maralinga, which was further to the West.

A biography about Taylor in the 'Ripples in the Sand’ catalogue notes that, alongside her artistic practice, 'Isabel has studied and worked at a wide range of things including: book-keeping; counselling; music; business management; anthropology; native title and laws and the history of the world’s Indigenous peoples’ (in Wright 2008, pg. 29).

Writers:

Fisher, Laura Note: In consultation with the artist, 2009

Date written:

2009

Last updated:

2011