Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/alma-toomath

Birth Place

Mount Barker, WA, Australia

Biography

Alma Toomath, Noongar artist, was born at Mount Barker in south Western Australia in 1940. Toomath was removed from her family in 1945 and taken to Carrolup Native Settlement near Katanning, in Western Australia. There she was taught by Lily White, the wife of headmaster Noel White, who is renowned for having encouraged the older children to paint and draw their surroundings. This led to the children creating high quality and sought after landscape works that were toured and sold in Australia and overseas in the late 1940 and 1950s. In the documentary Show us a light: the art of Carrolup (1991), Toomath describes her memories of being around the older boys as they created their work; she talks of the fact that the artistic tradition established by the Carrolup children artists has been an ongoing source of inspiration in her work and that of other Noongar artists. After two years at Carrolup, Toomath was sent to Roelands Mission, which was to the east of Katanning, close to the Western Australian coast. As a child on the missions, drawing was a means for Alma to cope with the trauma of being away from her family. In Koorah Coolingah (Children Long Ago) Toomath describes her experience on the missions: “We weren’t able to mix with our relatives or know our relatives because most of our you know our parents weren’t allowed to visit us…. So they more or less kept us there so we couldn’t be influenced by our people in any shape or form, and also we were forbidden to speak any Aboriginal language, we were only to speak English and to speak English properly, otherwise we were chastised you know.”(Pushman & Walley 2006, pg 17). After she left high school, she undertook a bridging course at the Curtin University in Perth, and went on to complete a Diploma in Fine Arts at Claremont Technical College. One of Toomath’s first exhibitions was in 1978 at the Aboriginal Advancement Council in Perth. After it was transferred to the control of the Baptist Church in 1952, the Carrolup Native Settlement came to be known as Marribank, and during the late 1980s and early 1990s Toomath was associated with the Marribank Artists Cooperative, which saw Noongar artists receive training and create pottery, jewellery and fabric items, the sale of which provided revenue to the Marribank Family Centre. In 1991 Toomath exhibited sculptural pieces alongside the work of Bella Kelly and Michelle Broun at the Fremantle Arts Centre in Fremantle. In 2000 her work was included in the 'Aboriginal artists of the South-West: Past and Present’ exhibition at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery, The University of Western Australia. In the exhibition catalogue, Stanton writes that Toomath had been “creating experimental works that reflect on the nature of the landscape and the manner of its construction, in mythological terms.” (Stanton & Hill 2000, pp. 16-17). Toomath has been a book illustrator, has participated in public art projects and has facilitated art workshops as a means of teaching students about culture within the education sector. Her work is in the collection of the Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Curtin University and the Berndt Museum of Anthropology. This entry is a stub. A full peer-reviewed biography can be found in the next tab. Writers: Fisher, Laura Date written: 2009 Last updated:

Born

b. 1940

Summary

Western Australian Indigenous artist who participated in the 'Aboriginal artists of the South-West: Past and Present' exhibition at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery, University of Western Australia (2000).

Gender

Female

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed