ELIZABETH NYUMI NUNGURRAYI - UNTITLED
ELIZABETH NYUMI NUNGURRAYI
UNTITLED, 2003
120 x 40 cm
acrylic on linen
PROVENANCE
Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No. 06/03
Private collection, Singapore
Art Leven, Gadigal NSW
STORY
Elizabeth Nyumi grew up near Jupiter Well, where she lived a nomadic life until she walked up the Canning Stock Route and into the old Balgo Mission in her late teens. In 1988, more than 40 years later she began painting at the Warlayirti Art Centre. Her subject is her father's country, Parwalla, far to the south of Balgo Hills in the Great Sandy Desert.
Parwalla is a large swampy area that fills with water after the wet season and consequently produces an abundance of bush foods. The majority of Nyumi's paintings show the different bush foods, including kantjilyi (bush raisin), pura (bush tomato), and minyili (seed). The whitish colours represent the spinifex that grows strong and seeds after the wet season rains. These seeds are white in colour and grow so thickly they obscure the ground and other plants below.
Elizabeth Nyumi was the foremost of the second-generation Balgo artists, on whose success the Warlayirti art centre at Balgo Hills has depended. More than any other artist, she extended the reputation of the Balgo women artists with her refreshingly distinct and individual depictions of the country.
EXHIBITED
Touring exhibition in Brazil, 2014 Cooee Art Gallery at Australian Galleries, April 2016, Australian Galleries SydneyBalgo Past and Present, 1st March - 13th April 2014, Coo-ee Art Gallery35th Anniversary Exhibition, Oxford Street, Dec 16- Jan 2017