For fourth generation artist Emily Rose, returning to Armadale each year for the Minnawarra Art Awards is an act of catharsis.
“It goes much deeper than the possibility of winning an award,” she said. “It’s about rewriting the narrative of my experience here.”
Emily is a Noongar/Yamatji woman who was born in Narrogin, but who spent her school years in the City of Armadale.
She was blessed to be born surrounded by artistically gifted women.
“My nana [Norma MacDonald] is a world-renowned artist,” she said. “There’s a photo of me as a baby at her very first exhibition.”
Her mother, too, became a talented artist, photographer and singer while Emily was young.
But Emily’s journey to realising she was also an artist was not as linear as you might imagine, considering her family’s heritage.
“When we arrived in the area, we lived just off Cammillo Rd. The house used to be my nana’s and it had an art studio in the back that my pop built. My mum worked from there studying art,” she said. “I grew up watching my mum become an artist there.”
But her home life was anything but idyllic.
“It was dysfunctional,” she said. “My parents eventually separated and that was an extremely difficult time for all of us.
“We also come from the stolen generation, so it was confusing growing up and trying to piece together our family history.”
With everything going on at home, Emily had a difficult time at school.
“But I do have some good memories of that time too – of riding bikes around with mates, catching the train into town and going to see a movie,” she said.
“After some time, my mum remarried and we moved to live in Mt Nasura behind the hospital.
“I have childhood memories of delivering The Examiner through the hills – it’s funny, right now it feels like I’ve gone full circle.
“But I still felt lonely and confused and just struggled all through that time.
“My nan took me out on country to make art – cards, bookmarks that sort of thing. Later on, we’d sell it at the Kings Park Gallery. It was her way of helping me with my mental health.
“Without art I wouldn’t be here.”
Emily also received vital support through the Youth Focus program, but she was still feeling ‘lost’ and unsure of who or what she wanted to be.
“I left high school during Year 10 to start a hairdressing apprenticeship,” she said.
“Six or so years later I purchased a house just off Armadale Rd with my ex-partner. I started my own successful hairdressing business, and I learned so much during this time.
“But from the age of 18 to 28, I didn’t do any art.
“I was being what everyone around me wanted me to be because I was so lost.
“And after a while I started to feel unsafe again. At 28 I found the courage to listen to my inner voice and break free from the cycle of toxic relationships.
“I left it all behind, and went on a huge healing journey. I spent a lot of time out on country with my mum and nana.
“Once I was truly on my own two feet, it wasn’t easy but I started to feel free to become who I was always meant to be.”
She found her husband, Chris, and fell pregnant. It was during this time that she picked up her brushes again, and started to paint.
“Having a baby made me want to continue my nana’s legacy,” she said.
And once she started painting, she couldn’t stop.
“I painted all throughout my pregnancy – even up until labour. I remember sitting on a yoga ball, still painting. And as soon as my daughter was born and I could get up, I was painting again,” she said.
“I started by making bookmarks and cards again and selling them on Etsy.
“Then I began entering my art into awards and having some success. It was at that point that I think I allowed myself to consider myself as a professional artist.
“I asked my nanna to mentor me, and she gave me her old oil brushes and paints. I used those to win the Noongar Country Award.”
In 2023, Emily won the prestigious Bunbury Regional Art Gallery’s Noongar Country award, with her masterpiece, Listen. The win came with a $10,000 prize.
“That was crazy. That was a big award,” she said. “When I left my previous life behind, I took nothing with me but my car. But this prize allowed me to buy a computer, which was the start of my digital art.
“It just sort of snowballed from there.”
Last year she was commissioned as one of two emerging Noongar artists on the Lake Gwelup Story Trail project – a public art installation that celebrates that culturally significant site.
This year she was commissioned to create a large-scale mural on the ground floor at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) as part of the Revealed exhibition, which showcases emerging Aboriginal artists.
“That piece is called ‘The body of my mother’, and is about mother earth holding us. There’s an umbilical cord that wraps around the whole room and connects leaves which represent six generations of my family,” she explained.
She’s also been asked by the City of Melville to be an artist in residence later this year at Goolugatup, and is working towards her first solo exhibition.
“I’m full of doubt about what to create for my first solo exhibition,” she said. “And it’s hard to put yourself out there. But then I think, what if I’m planting the seed for someone else to find their own path.
“And I want to leave a legacy for my daughter.”
Emily Rose is a multidisciplinary artist, whose work pushes the boundaries between Indigenous cultural tradition and modern innovation.
“My nana has taught me the importance of keeping traditions alive while embracing contemporary approaches to share our culture,” she said.
Her artwork draws on her experiences of motherhood, of family, and immersion in nature.
The piece she’s entering into this year’s Minnawarra Art Awards is called ‘subtle signs’, and explores the soft transitions that Noongar country goes through across the six seasons.
But her work also comes from a much deeper, more spiritual place.
Recently, while looking at an old painting of her mum’s she noticed some striking similarities to her own style, and mentioned that she could she where she gets it from.
“But mum said: ‘no Em, it’s just in our blood. It comes to us from our ancestors’,” she said.
“In that moment, I realised why I didn’t take my art seriously sooner. With both nana and mum being celebrated artists, I always wondered, ‘how could I ever live up to their potential?’
“But since committing to this path, I don’t think that way anymore. It’s not about comparison—it’s about how their work can inspire mine, so I can share our stories in my own way.”
The Minnawarra Art Awards kick off the Armadale Arts Festival this weekend, and feature some of the best artists from all over Western Australia.
To see Emily’s work, or any of the other incredible pieces in the free, professionally-curated exhibition, visit the Armadale District Hall this Saturday, May 3, between 11am and 4pm.
