About Boomerang Art - Aboriginal Art Gallery and Studio

 

Werner and Elena established Boomerang Art in 1996  and in  September 2023 they moved to a bush property some 15 minutes drive from Alice Springs. Here they established a studio and two outside galleries by renovating and building an additional two sheds with a combined display area of about 500 square meters.

 

 

 

Werner's Story

I was always interested in art and when visiting other countries I never missed an opportunity to visit Art Galleries in France, the Netherlands and wherever I was able to travel. At that time I worked in a German law enforcement agency and after a holiday in Australia I decided in 1980 at the age of 36 to move permanently to Australia.

Whilst I never even for one day missed Germany, I missed the camaraderie of the colleagues I worked with in the Bureau of Investigation in Munich. That made me apply for a job somehow related to my old profession in the police. After the first year as a training officer for the Australian Protective Services I ended up becoming National Operations Manager. Restless as always, about 10 years later I joined Customs and continued to work there till my early retirement in 1996 as Regional Director for South Australia.

That's when I was able to realize my dreams, starting a gallery in Adelaide. Unfortunately, it did not go as well as hoped and the decision was made that my wife Elena continues to run the gallery in Adelaide and look after our two children, whilst I commute to Alice Springs to work with artists and come home for a family visit every two weeks. This worked very well but doing it for a full 16-year I had enough. I moved back to Adelaide and later we transferred all to the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

Finally, 2022 brought about a fundamental change. I felt I was on the way out. I booked into the Brisbane Prince Charles Hospital and whilst it was a quite traumatic experience to stay there for open heart surgery, all the staff were kind, extremely helpful, and particularly the surgeon very professional. Three month  after the operation I was able to work again. having watched all what Netflix offers during my recovery period in a recliner chair and being nursed by my wife Elena I felt bored and was eager to get active again.

I said to Elena, I am only 80, that is too young to retire and boredom kills me. Let's start business again. Knowing her I expected her to agree but I was not prepared for her response. She said, why don't we move to Alice Springs close to Utopia where our artists live so we do not have to travel at a great expense. It took me 5 minutes to agree, and we sold all on the Sunshine Coast and at the same time looked around and decided for a suitable property 10 km's outside of Alice Springs.  We immediately started to develop our new place and now have a functional studio for artists to paint and a display area of about 500 square meters. Elena is busy creating our desert garden, looking after our chooks, 2 dogs and me. She claims that I am the most difficult one to look after and relaxes going for weekend walks with some groups, enjoys working with community garden people...  and finds it rewarding to engage in local activities.

Alice Springs is a very nice place with beautiful surroundings, a place all Australians should visit. It is our home and we welcome visitors to our place and view our art collection. All paintings are for sale and we have available not only a large variety of works for collectors but also a great selection of very reasonably priced new works.