Daisybell Kulyuru | Pukatja Artist
In Her Own Words
Daisybell Tjalumi Kulyuru was born in 1971 in Pukatja (Ernabella) in the APY Lands of South Australia. She grew up painting on country, learning alongside her community, carrying the stories of her people through vivid, earthy canvases that speak directly of life, land and bush tucker.
We sat down with Daisybell at our Adelaide gallery to hear her story in her own words.
On where she comes from
Daisybell was born and raised in Pukatja, the Ernabella community in the APY Lands of South Australia - Pitjantjatjara country, deep in the arid heart of the continent. It is a place defined by its red desert landscape, its wildflowers after rain, its hunting grounds, and the bonds between family and community that have held people to country for tens of thousands of years.
She still moves between Pukatja and Adelaide today, carrying that country with her wherever she goes. A large Pukatja community has made Adelaide home over the years, and Daisybell is part of that - connected not just by family but by shared country, shared story, shared life.
On how she started painting
Daisybell began painting while she was still at school in Ernabella. After school she and her cousin Audrey Brumby would walk down to the Ernabella Arts centre together - two young women from Pukatja, learning by watching and doing alongside the women of their community.
The dot painting tradition arrived at Ernabella through the community itself. Someone came from Alice Springs, stayed, watched the people, and the knowledge spread - through the art centre, through the families, through the community.
Daisybell learned the way knowledge has always moved in her culture - through observation, through participation, through being present alongside the people around her. She took what she saw and made it her own.
On what she paints
Daisybell's paintings are records of movement across country. They tell the story of hunting - of travelling out from Pukatja across the different areas and hunting grounds that surround her community, finding bush tucker along the way.
"When we go hunting, we go to different places."
Each canvas maps a journey. The colours, the forms, the marks across the surface - they represent the areas she has travelled, the bush tucker she has found, the country she has moved through since childhood. It is the same tradition her people have always carried - once drawn on sand with sticks, now painted on canvas.
"You're drawing on the canvas. Telling the story."
The canvas is the sand. The painting is the map. The story is the country.
On teaching through painting
Painting is not only a personal practice for Daisybell - it is how she passes knowledge to her family. Just as the women of her community once gathered to draw in sand, she now paints to show children what country looks like, what the stories mean, how to read the land through marks and colour.
The tradition continues the way it always has - not through formal instruction but through presence, through watching, through sharing the canvas.
On her colours
Daisybell is drawn to the reds and earthy tones of her desert country - the deep ochres and burnt siennas of the APY Lands landscape she grew up in. But her palette is not fixed. Some works are vibrant, alive with colour that moves beyond the desert into something bold and joyful.
The desert is in her foundation. What she builds on top of it is entirely her own.
On Audrey Brumby
Daisybell and Audrey Brumby are cousins - two Pukatja women who walked to the Ernabella Arts centre together as young women and have painted ever since. The connection between them is part of the fabric of their community - family, country, and art woven together from the beginning.
Art by Farquhar is proud to represent both artists.
About Daisybell Kulyuru
Daisybell Tjalumi Kulyuru is a Pitjantjatjara painter born in 1971 in Pukatja (Ernabella) in the APY Lands of South Australia. She began painting at Ernabella Arts as a young woman, learning alongside her cousin Audrey Brumby, and has painted her country's stories ever since. Her works depict the journeys and hunting grounds of her Pukatja country - maps of movement across the arid landscape of the APY Lands, rendered in the earthy reds and vibrant colours of the desert. She divides her time between Pukatja and Adelaide.
Art by Farquhar is a member of the Australian Aboriginal Art Association. Every painting comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.