JORNA NEWBERRY - WALPA - WIND DREAMING

 JORNA NEWBERRY
WALPA - WIND DREAMING,  
118 x 102 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Belgian Linen
 
PROVENANCE
Ngaatjatjarra Lands
Palya Proper Fine Art, NTCooee Art, 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 Womenā€™s site near an important rockhole, near Tjukurla. The soft roundels represent the rockholes as well as a ceremonial site. The lines represent sandhills. This site is an important site for Jorna. Jorna paints with a softening of iconography through interlacing with intricate finely dotted patterning. This soft dotting technique is characteristic of many of the Mount Liebig women artists.