Skin name: Tjapaltjarri
Language: Luritja/ Pintupi
Date of birth: 1 April 1953
Current home: Central Australia

Kevin was born and raised at Haasts Bluff with his father kata Wirri and mother Freda Nangala. Kevin went to school in Papunya and Areyonga. When he grew up he worked at Haast’s Bluff. In 1974 he married Doris Abbott and came to live in Alice Springs. He started working with the Tangentyere Council and in 1995 was elected to the Tangentyere Executive. He is a member of the 4 Corners Council, a group of traditional law men who make rules for Aboriginal people in the Central Australian region.

Kevin has been an artist all his life and has worked on several large art projects. One of these was the decoration of the store at Docker River where he designed and painted a mural. Kevin works mainly in watercolours and depicts the Central Australian landscape and the West MacDonnell Ranges in his own masterly style, which has made him an artist of renown. He and Doris have three children and their son Elton shows early promise, and is painting watercolors after the style of his father.

EXHIBITIONS:

• 2003 Desert Mob, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2004 Desert Mob, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2004 Central Australian Advocate Art Award, Highly Commended
• 2005 Desert Mob Exhibition, Araluen Galleries Alice Springs
• 2006 Desert Mob Exhibition
• 2006 Hermannsburg School of Art – Water colour exhibition, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2007 Work selected for Telstra Art Award Exhibition, Darwin
• 2007 Advocate Art Award, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2007 24th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of NT
• 2007 Desert Mob Exhibitions, Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs
• 2009 Telstra Art Awards, Darwin, Northern Territory
• 2009 Wirri Mob Watercolours – Recent paintings by Central Australian Aboriginal artists father & son Kevin & Elton Wirri
• 2011 Art Mob Gallery, Hobart TAS
• 2011 Alcaston Gallery, Melbourne VIC
• 2011 Chapman Gallery, Canberra

Collections:

• Araluen Galleries, Alice Springs, NT
• Museum and Art Gallery of NT