Warlukurlangu artists from Yuendumu sell more than $250,000 in just three days at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair, exceeding expectations.
This year's Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair was the most successful for one remote central Australian Indigenous Art Centre based in Yuendumu, 290 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.Warlukurlangu Artists was one of the first to license products with its designs that make up 25 per cent of its businessCecilia Alfonso has been the manager of Warlukurlangu Artists for 20 years. It's an Aboriginal-owned art centre established in 1985.
"We produce over 10,000 paintings a year and we sell 10,000 paintings a year. So the demand is there." Ms Alfonso said it had been important for the art centre to diversify into other media by using licensed artwork on a variety of different products."Most communities are attempting to do that now. So it's becoming a lot more common for art centres to agree to license the products," she said.As one of the first centres to diversify into another income stream, Ms Alfonso said that there was some criticism from within the art world.
"We do fabrics with Spotlight and we do these pots that became viral with Bunnings, which has been a really positive, fun, very lucrative deal for the artists," she said.Despite the diversification being positive for the artists and the centre, Ms Alfonso wanted to reiterate that it was not the sole purpose of the centre.
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