Perth-based artist Valda Kickett-Taylor is of the Noongar Balladong people of the central wheat-belt region of Western Australia. She was born in 1960 in Kellerberrin, which is approximately 200 kilometres east of Perth. Kickett-Taylor’s elder siblings were removed from the family home and placed into state care and it is this story and the story of her parents’ suffering as a result that informs some of her work. Other influences include stories of Aboriginal survival in the 20th century.
She first began painting when she enrolled in a three-year art course at Midland College of TAFE, which she followed with a Diploma in Aboriginal Visual Arts at the TAFE and an Associate Degree in Aboriginal Art at Curtin University of Technology. In 2009 Kickett-Taylor enrolled in the Certificate III course in Visual Art and Contemporary Craft at the Kidogo Institute in Fremantle, which was run by Joanna Robertson. This course provides the students with the necessary technical skills required to further their visual art practice, and in June 2009 the students of this course held a group exhibition, 'Moorditj Mob’, at the Kidogo Arthouse. Kickett-Taylor is also a member of Mungart Boodja Art Centre based in Katanning, Western Australia.
In 2006, 2007 and 2008 Kickett-Taylor was included in the Moorditch Mar-Daa Art Award and in 2000 was Highly Commended at the inaugural Kellerberrin Shire Keela Dreaming Cultural Festival, a bi-annual event celebrating Aboriginal culture. In April/May 2009 Kickett-Taylor’s work was included in the exhibition 'The Legacy of Koorah Coolingah (The Legend of Children Long Ago)’ held at the Brisbane Powerhouse. This exhibition showed twenty-five paintings by the original Carrolup children artists plus around twenty-five new works of artists from Mungart Boodja Art Centre who follow the Carrolup tradition.
Kickett-Taylor has work in the permanent collections of the Berndt Museum of Anthropology (University of Western Australia) and the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University of Technology.
- Writers:
- Allas, Tess
- Date written:
- 2009
- Last updated:
- 2011
