Design and Art Australia Online

Born c.1950 at Yambah station, where Norbett grew up. Over the years, he has worked as a labourer and a bus driver for Yipirinya school in Alice Springs. He speaks Arrente (Aranda), specifically Eastern Arrente, and lives most of the year at the Wenton Rubuntja camp in Alice Springs. He also spends several months a year on the family’s traditional land. Norbett started painting in 1986 and does the five Corkwood Dreaming stories his father, Don 'Popsie’ Lynch, has given him to do. Norbett’s sisters Pamela and Margaret have also been given one Corkwood story each, but they rarely paint. Some of his five children have also begun to paint the Corkwood Dreaming stories. Norbett’s work is represented in many private collections overseas, one of which, the Donald Kahn Collection, has been touring North America and Europe since 1991 with Norbett’s the largest piece in the show. Like other artists living in Alice Springs who began working in the Western Desert style in the late ’80s, Norbett’s work exhibits a conscious dialogue with the expectations of the western art market. It includes T-shirt designs as well as paintings.

Writers:

Johnson, Vivien

Date written:

1994

Last updated:

2011