Merryn Schriever
Managing Director, Australia
Lot 42
Ningura Napurrula(born circa 1938)(Designs Associated with the Rockhole Site of Wirrulnga), 2007
6 June 2017, 18:30 AEST
Sydney, NCJWASold for AU$18,300 inc. premium
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Alex Clark
Head of Sale, Senior Specialist
Ningura Napurrula (born circa 1938)
(Designs Associated with the Rockhole Site of Wirrulnga), 2007
inscribed verso with artist's name and Papunya Tula cat. NN0710225
synthetic polymer paint on linen
153.0 x 183.0cm (60 1/4 x 72 1/16in).
inscribed verso with artist's name and Papunya Tula cat. NN0710225
synthetic polymer paint on linen
153.0 x 183.0cm (60 1/4 x 72 1/16in).
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs
Private collection, Melbourne
This painting is accompanied by Papunya Tula Artists documentation that reads: 'This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Wirrulnga, east of Kiwirrkura Community in Western Australia. The roundels in the painting represent the rockholes at the site.
In ancestral times a group of women of the Napaltjarri and Napurrula kinship subsections camped at Wirrulnga, having travelled from the rockhole site of Ngaminya further west.
Wirrulnga is a site which is associated with birth and the lines extending from the roundels symbolise the shape of a pregnant woman of the Napaltjarri kinship subsection who gave birth at the site.
While at Wirrulnga the women also made spun hair-string for making nyimparra (hair string skirts), which are worn during ceremonies.
From Wirrulnga the women continued to their travels north-east to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). As they travelled they gathered large quantities of bush food known as kampurarrpa or desert raisin from the plant Solanum centrale. These berries can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked in the coals to form a type of damper. The circles in this work represent the kampurarrpa, while the short straight lines represent the wana (digging sticks) the women used'.