DOROTHY NAPANGARDI - SANDHILLS OF MINA MINA

 DOROTHY NAPANGARDI
SANDHILLS OF MINA MINA,  2006
152 x 122 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Belgian Linen
 
PROVENANCE
Yuendumu, NT
Gallery Gondwana Fine Art, NTCooee Art Gallery, NSW 
 
STORY
This work depicts a major womenā€™s ceremonial site known as Mina Mina, the artistā€™s custodial country, located near Lake Mackay in the Tanami Desert, north of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. Made up of two enormous soakage areas and endless sandhills.The concentric circles are the claypans at Mina Mina which are at times filled with fresh water. It is an integral part of the Karntakurlangu Tjukurrpa (Women's Dreaming).During the Jukurrpa Ancestral women of the Napangardi and Napanangka sub-section groups (aunt / niece relationship, in which knowledge is passedfrom one to the other) gathered to collect ceremonial digging sticks (karlangu) that had emerged from the ground. They then proceeded east, performing rituals of song and dance, to the place known as Jankinyi. A large stand of Desert Oaks (Allocasuarina decaisneana) now grow where these digging sticks emerged from the ground.Dorothy Napangardi was a Walpiri woman from Mina Mina. Her finely painted minimal depiction's of Mina Mina have deservedly won her critical and popular acclaim. Regarded as one of the leading artists of the contemporary Aboriginal Art movement.
 
EXHIBITED
And They Danced Their Way Across Country, October 2018, Cooee Art Paddington, 20th October - 10 November 2018