Ningura Napurrula
Desert Raisin Dreaming, 2001
acrylic on linen
122 x 137 cm
48 1/8 x 54 in
48 1/8 x 54 in
Western Desert Tribe: Pintupi/Kiwirrkura DOB: c.1938 – 2013 Desert Raisin Dreaming This painting depicts designs associated with Women's Ceremonies at the rock hole site of Ngaminya in Western Australia. A...
Western Desert
Tribe: Pintupi/Kiwirrkura
DOB: c.1938 – 2013
Desert Raisin Dreaming
This painting depicts designs associated with Women's Ceremonies at the rock hole site of Ngaminya in Western Australia. A group of women gathered at the site to perform dances and sing songs associated with the land. You can see the oblong shapes are their Nulla-Nulla’s, fighting clubs, which are used during the ceremony and the arcs represent the rocky outcrops in the region. While the women are in the area they gather the edible berries known as Kampurarrpa or desert raisin from the small shrub called Solanum Centrale.
Ningura Napurrula became one of the most prominent female painters of the contemporary Aboriginal Australian arts. She was part of the Kintore/Haasts Bluff women’s painting project in 1995, where she began to make her abstract paintings on canvas after watching husband and artist Yala Yala Tjungurrayi. Her signature motif is a black-and-white line pattern with occasional accents in bright colours; it carries a symbolic meaning derived from her ancestral mythology specifically detailing their journey and the sacred sites her ancestors passed. Her work has been seen on Australian postage stamps in 2002 and most recently her work is featured on the ceiling of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.
Tribe: Pintupi/Kiwirrkura
DOB: c.1938 – 2013
Desert Raisin Dreaming
This painting depicts designs associated with Women's Ceremonies at the rock hole site of Ngaminya in Western Australia. A group of women gathered at the site to perform dances and sing songs associated with the land. You can see the oblong shapes are their Nulla-Nulla’s, fighting clubs, which are used during the ceremony and the arcs represent the rocky outcrops in the region. While the women are in the area they gather the edible berries known as Kampurarrpa or desert raisin from the small shrub called Solanum Centrale.
Ningura Napurrula became one of the most prominent female painters of the contemporary Aboriginal Australian arts. She was part of the Kintore/Haasts Bluff women’s painting project in 1995, where she began to make her abstract paintings on canvas after watching husband and artist Yala Yala Tjungurrayi. Her signature motif is a black-and-white line pattern with occasional accents in bright colours; it carries a symbolic meaning derived from her ancestral mythology specifically detailing their journey and the sacred sites her ancestors passed. Her work has been seen on Australian postage stamps in 2002 and most recently her work is featured on the ceiling of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.