NYURAPAYIA (MRS BENNETT) NAMPITJINPA - KAPI TJUKURRPA (WATER DREAMING)

 NYURAPAYIA (MRS BENNETT) NAMPITJINPA
KAPI TJUKURRPA (WATER DREAMING),  2007
122 x 153 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Belgian Linen
 
PROVENANCE
Western Desert, NT
Yanda Aboriginal Art, NTFolio of working imagesPrivate Collection, NSW 
 
STORY
This painting depicts the site known as Punkilpirri. This is located near Tjukurrla on the Northern Territory / Western Australian borders. Nyurapayia was born in Pitjantjatjara country, near the site of today's Docker River community. She spent much of her childhood at Pangkupirri, a set of sheltered rockholes deep in the range-folds of the Gibson Desert. She was raised in an extended nomad familial group. She saw no white men until she was in her teens, although she had heard strange tales of their presence on the fringes of the vast sand-dune terrain she travelled through.She remembered well her first, fleeting contact with the outside world. It came in a cool season: her father and his two brothers led their children on a cautious journey westwards, through the desert oak country, over dry creeks for days on end, until they reached the new mission compound at Warburton. From a safe distance they stared over the fence at the white people working there, then retreated to the bush again.(Nicolas Rothwell, the Australian)