Charlene Carrington Australian, Gija, b. 1977

Charlene was born in Perth but has lived most of her life in Warmun Community. At high school, she was inspired to start painting by Hector Jandany, her grandfather, and Queenie McKenzie who came to Warmun School to teach the children Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) stories and traditional painting methods.

Charlene comes from a family of artists: her parents are established artists Churchill Cann and Sadie Carrington and her grandfathers are Hector Jandany and Beerbee Mungnari.  who are also established Warmun artists.  Her grandmother, Betty Carrington, is an established artist and the partner of renowned Warmun painter Patrick Mung Mung. 

When she was young Charlene sat with the old people, in particualr Hector Jandany and Jack Britten, watching them paint and learning the traditional methods.  She is the only person in the Warmun Art School who has used natural binders, garliwan, and other natural pigments such as crushed leaf extracts collected from local eucalypts to bind the ochres to canvas and board.  This is the method used by Rover Thomas, Jack Britten and Hector Jandany, before acrylic binders were made available.  She also used the acrylic binders.  Carrington combines caring for her six young children and teaching them traditional bush ways with her career as an emerging artist in high demand.