JORNA NEWBERRY - WALPA (WIND DREAMING)
JORNA NEWBERRY
WALPA (WIND DREAMING), 2019
121 x 181 cm
synthetic polymer paint on Belgian linen
REGION
Ngaatjatjarra Lands
PROVENANCE
Yanda Art, NT
Cooee Art Leven, NSW
STORY
Jorna Newberry is a Pitjantjatjara artist who began painting in Warakurna in the mid 1990s and later joined Irrunytju arts centre in Wingellina. Her work relates directly to the surrounding Pitjantjatjara lands in the Western Desert. Newberry paints places of significance, relaying ancestral stories which are embedded in the land.
Jorna learned to paint while looking after her adoptive uncle, the renowned artist Tommy Yannima Watson. To ensure the secrecy of important stories she employs an abstract, multi-layered approach when rendering her stories in paint and canvas. She softens the iconography through intricate, interlaced finely dotted patterns. Stylistically this method is shared by many of the Mount Leibig female artists whom she often works alongside.
This work depicts a Women’s site near an important rockhole, near Tjukurla. The soft roundels represent the rockholes as well as a ceremonial site. The lines represent sandhills.
ARTIST PROFILE