Tex Skuthorpe

Tex Skuthorpe was an Aboriginal Elder and artist from Goodooga in north western NSW. Tex was privileged to be taught his people's traditional culture by the Noonghaburra Elders from Noonghal country.

His painting 'Learning to Communicate' was purchased for this project, and Tex was kind enough to provide his own interpretation of the artwork for our website:

"In each of the 26 communities there were completely different ways of communicating, which young people had to learn in order to show respect. Traditionally, the women lived with their husband's community so, within each community, there were women from every one of the other 25 groups. As such, the women taught the young boys and girls how to communicate in each different group. This ensured that when the boys went on their initiation journey, they knew how to show respect to each community they lived with. Some of the different ways of communicating are depicted in the painting—speaking through a third person, speaking over an object, speaking back to back, speaking back to back and through another person."

The artist retained intellectual copyright for this work.