A new exhibition program will bring the work of late, and much-loved, East Kimberley Jaru painter Janet Dreamer to the whole country.

Ms Dreamer, who passed in 2021, was known affectionately as "Dreamer".

She grew up in the 1960s at her birthplace of Old Flora Valley in the east Kimberley. She and her five siblings hunted, fished and travelled with their Elders, learning the traditional ways. Later, she moved to Kirkimbie Station as a kitchen worker and had two children, then to Billiluna Station and eventually to Halls Creek.

Although Dreamer started painting at the age of 16 under her father's tutelage, it was several decades later - after she joined Yarliyil Arts in Halls Creek in 2013 - that she started painting in earnest and with her own vision. And what a vision it was.

Her vibrantly coloured canvases with their free imagery and sizzling hues bring to life an extraordinary range of flora, wildlife and water life of Old Flora Valley Station, the lush oasis of nearby Palm Springs (Lugangarna) and the abundance of both plants and wildlife she observed on the many journeys she called 'walkabout' over vast tracks of her people's country from Derby to Halls Creek.

"My country", she said, "stays in my dreams. I dream about my home, and I don't forget about my country."

At Yarliyil Art Centre, Dreamer was an artistic dynamo as she painted ceaselessly for hours on end. Art centre staff had never experienced anything like either her artistic style - a seamless blend of naive figuration and abstraction - or her prodigious output.

First, she would set down her main subject (typically fauna, birds, flora or water life), then semi obscure them with sweeps of luminous colours and patterns. The results are joyous works of boundless, raw energy characterised by brilliant colouration and unique figuration.

A number of works were snapped up by art centre visitors, and recognising their quality and individuality, Yarliyil Arts started putting a selection aside for gallery exhibitions. In 2020 however, the advent of COVID derailed most of the planned exhibitions.

Sadly, Ms Dreamer's health also declined, and she passed away in hospital in Darwin in 2021, leaving a substantial body of work.

Dreamer was a finalist in Perth's prestigious John Stringer Prize 2022 (in a posthumous tribute) and three works were acquired by the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

Long term art Kimberley art centre manager Kevin Kelly, as manager of Yarliyil Arts worked with Dreamer from 2017 to 2021. He described her vibrant, energetic work as "compelling and utterly original - unlike any other artist I'd ever seen". Noting also that in their depictions of now rare wildlife, and ceremonial iconography, many works are also of "profound cultural significance".

Kelly's previous roles included as manager of Waringarri Arts. Kununurra in the early 1990s, working with the giants of ochre painting - Paddy Jaminji, Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie, Jack Britten, Freddie Timms.

In 2024, Yarliyil Art Centre appointed the Mornington Peninsula-based Victorian gallery Everywhen Art to represent Mrs Dreamer's estate and to create a national exhibition programme of Mrs Dreamer's work in partnership with Yarliyil Arts, to accord this remarkable artist the recognition she and her work so richly deserve.

The first of these exhibitions The Paradisical World of Janet Dreamer will be opened by Kevin Kelly on February 8, 2025, at Everywhen Art, Whistlewood, 642 Tucks Road, Shoreham, Victoria.

Exhibition dates: February 8- March 3.

Subsequent exhibitions to be held with Artitja Fine Art, South Fremantle, Sept. 2025 and in Sydney 2026.