PULPURRU DAVIES - UNTITLED
PULPURRU DAVIES
UNTITLED, 2015
50 x 48 cm
Synthetic Polymer Paint on Canvas
REGION
Warakurna, WA
PROVENANCE
Warakurna Artists, NT
Private Collection, NSW
Cooee Art Leven, NSW
STORY
Pulpurru Davies was born in the early 1940's near Yankaltjunku, a rockhole in the north east of the Gibson Desert. She is a Ngaanyatjarra woman, for whom Yankaltjunku is a sacred place. Pulpurru grew up living a traditional, nomadic way of life in the desert with her family. They moved from waterhole to waterhole in their traditional country. They lived this way up until the 1960s, by which time they were one of the last groups of nomadic people in Australia.By the mid-1960s, Pulpurru's family were camped at Patjarr, which was only a rockhole at the time. They had been forced to stay in one place because of several years of drought, and Patjarr usually had a reliable supply of water. While they were living there, an English anthropologist named Ian Dunlop came and filmed the family in their daily routines. It was later made into a documentary, titled People of the Australian Western Desert (1966), produced by the Australian Commonwealth Film Unit. Pulpurru was an adult by that time.
"We went and lived there at Patjarr rock hole when there was no water. We lived there for a long time. After a long time we saw a white man who came [...] We used to get up in the morning and put our carrying dish on our heads and walk off. He used to film us from behind. That white man filmed us as we gathered fruits, grains, and berries. That other lady and I and the children used to collect food and he used to film us. We would dig for small game, dig the animals from the burrow, kill them, pick them up and walk off. That man making them movie stayed here a long time and later on he went back home."
Like most other Ngaanyatjarra groups, Pulpurru and her family were moved out of the desert to settle at Warburton. They were brought there by government patrol officers in the late 1960s. At Warburton, Davies worked several domestic jobs. It was at Warburton that Davies began working in arts and crafts, at the Warburton Arts Project. Alongside other women, she learned to paint using modern Western techniques and how to make glasswork designs.
In the early 1990s, a road was built out to Patjarr, and Davies and her family returned to establish a permanent community there (Karilywara). This is where Davies now lives and paints. She paints for Kayili Artists, the community artists' co-operative.
Davies paints events and stories from her country, and the Dreaming legends associated with it. Places often depicted in her paintings are Yankaltjunku (where she was born), Kiwarr (where her family used to dig for water), and Mirra Mirra (where one of Pulpurru's sons was born).
ARTIST PROFILE
