Pitjantjatjara Yangkunyjatjara

Since the mid 1970's Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara people have established decentralised communities close to available artesian water supplies, of which Indulkana the home to Iwantja Arts is one of them. Anangu people have special ties to totemic sites in the are and paint their connection to it. Artists use symbolism from their own individual Dreaming path, single and concentric circles, animal tracks and straight and curved lines.
The dots in different colour blocks represent vegetation as it changes from place to place and season to season. Each painting represents not only the site, but the event that took place there in the Dreaming. Sites may be specific rocks, waterholes, special trees, mountains and others. Not only geological features, but places where bush food can be gathered. Wavy lines may depict travels of these ancestral beings.
Contemporary art extends the boundaries of these traditions incorporating contemporary themes and bold colours.

Iwantja Community is mainly Yankunytjatjara people living on the eastern side of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, 8 km from the Stuart Highway in the far north of South Australia, on a dusty rocky ridge called Indulkana. Indulkana Arts Association started in the seventies, initially used for secondary student's art lessons. People did traditional wood carving (punu), batik, patchwork, dying, painting and around the early eighties linoblock printing started. 

Iwantja Arts and Crafts moved into the Family Centre in January 1995. Since then Iwantja has gone from strength to strength on the basis of its strong cultural identity and impressive output.