Ngura Puti (Bush Home)

ReDot Fine Art Gallery in collaboration with Mimili Maku Arts presents:

Ngura Puti (Bush Home)

Wednesday, 5th September till Saturday, 13th October 2012

For a high resolution, downloadable, PDF version of the this catalogue, with pricing, please send us an email to info@redotgallery.com Thank you.

c o n t e m p o r a r y

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a b o r i g i n a l

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“The whimsical works currently being produced at Mimili Maku Arts continue to attract attention with their traditional imagery, symbols and narrative combined with the abstract wild application of colour and texture. Artists retain individual styles, differing modes of application, brushstrokes and colour combinations, but all manage to create fluid pieces depicting mountain ranges, waterholes, caves and other topographical elements of the land, embedded with sacred spiritual connection. �

Giorgio PILLA, 2012

Ngura Puti (Bush Home) Equal in traditional appeal and contemporary resonance, Mimili Maku works are considered some of the most exciting to emerge from the APY Lands in recent years and are found in all important private and public collections in Australia and overseas focused on Aboriginal art.

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ReDot Fine Art Gallery is thrilled to host the first international exhibition of the works from Mimili Maku Arts, an indigenous owned and directed art centre, located in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, in the far north west of South Australia, where some of the most exciting, fresh and contemporary Aboriginal art of recent years has emerged.

The area is dominated by red sandstone ridges dotted with boulders, a stony landscape that holds a network of waterholes and streams, making the area abundant in sites rich of plant and animal life and sacred sites. One special site is Antara, located south west of Mimili and home of the Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub dreaming) which gives the art centre its name. Maku is the Pitjantjatjara word for the edible witchetty grubs or caterpillars found in the roots of the witchetty bush (Acacia kempeana or Wattle Tree).

The artists of Mimili Maku have been painting for almost a decade but the art centre didn’t gain wider recognition until Milatjari Pumani, a respected senior Yankunytjatjara woman, started painting in 2008 at the age of 80, propelling this remote community into the spotlight of the modern Australian contemporary art scene. Today the art centre works with more than 50 artists, men and women, young and old from Mimili and the four surrounding homelands of Perentie Bore, Wanmara, Blue Hills and Sandy’s Bore.

The whimsical works currently being produced at Mimili Maku Arts continue to attract attention with their traditional imagery, symbols and narrative combined with the abstract wild application of colour and texture. Artists retain individual styles, differing modes of application, brushstrokes and colour combinations, but all manage to create fluid pieces depicting mountain ranges, waterholes, caves and other topographical elements of the land, embedded with sacred spiritual connection.

Equal in traditional appeal and contemporary resonance, Mimili Maku works are considered some of the most exciting to emerge from the APY Lands in recent years and are found in all important private and public collections in Australia and overseas focused on Aboriginal art.

This exhibition will showcase superb works by the legendary Milatjari Pumani, her daughters Ngupulya and Betty Pumani, Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin and Kathleen Tjapalyi amongst others.

A group of artists and the art centre manager, Ms. Hannah Grace, will travel to Singapore to attend the exhibition opening on the 5th September 2012, to add their perspective on desert life and the mysteries that are captured within the stories embedded in the 30 plus works that will be on show.

Giorgio Pilla ReDot Fine Art Gallery July 2012

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The Antara tree in the Everard Ranges of northern South Australia.

Blossoming where songlines meet Red domes, veiled skies, heat haze, mulga -- the country of the Yankunytjatjara holds the patterns and the rhythms of its landscape out of easy reach.

Here, in the remote Everard Ranges of northern South Australia, an elusive new phase in the desert art movement is under way. It has been taking shape quietly these past three years, in the small community of Mimili, far off the well-worn art tourism track. Even more than the recent flowerings of new work in nearby communities, the art of Mimili speaks most clearly when read as a pure dictation from the country, a translation of natural language into paint.

The initial chapters of this story were modest. For the moment, Mimili Maku art centre still occupies a tiny stone house built in a declivity that floods whenever rain pours off the adjacent rocks. Painting began here almost a decade ago in fitful fashion, but gained momentum only when one of the most striking artists of the desert region, Milatjari Pumani, took up her dotting stick for the first time in 2008, at the age of 80. There is a full-time co-ordinator based in the community, and several of Pumani’s ultra-talented children and relatives paint regularly. A new art centre building will be completed in the heart of Mimili by the end of next year.

A swift transition, an ambitious blueprint -- but art, its production, its control and stewardship, has long been preoccupations of the men and women living in this landscape.

Drawing and painting first became popular activities in the rudimentary arts and crafts centre set-up at Ernabella Mission to the west more than 50 years ago. An art studio for the Stuart Highway tourist market opened in the neighbouring community of Indulkana to the east in the early 1980s; but the explosion of art-making at Mimili has proved subtly different in emphasis from other recent “start-ups” of community-based art centres in the desert lands.

Located in the centre of the eastern Pitjantjatjara-Yankunytjatjara region -- so named for the languages spoken there -- Mimili, with its 350 residents and its vast array of new housing and facilities, has come to play a special role in the official, governmental conception of the South Australian desert realm. It is a hub community, marked down for future growth. New plans and policies by the dozen receive trial runs here. But in the Aboriginal domain its significance is quite different.

Mimili’s importance rests in the surrounding country and the past: the events that took place in the ranges nearby during ancestral times. The community lies close to myriad tjukurpa or dreaming sites. This geography makes it something akin to a cultural guardpost watching over the land. There is a virtual expressway of interweaving, crisscrossing song-cycle tracks all through the country to the west. Deep in the hills on the horizon is the maku or witchetty grub dreaming. One of the key sites is Antara, a pair of prominent rockholes aligned in parallel that mark the passage of creator beings. It is

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at Antara that increase rituals for the maku are performed -- and, unsurprisingly, paired rockhole symbols feature repeatedly in the work of Mimili’s most successful artists.

On the floor of the main painting room, watched by a pack of attentive camp-dogs, Tuppy Goodwin is putting the finishing touches to a large canvas drenched in colour: pinks, blues, mauves -- and once the eye catches the sets of paired waterholes facing out in multiple directions the painting comes into focus as a dizzyingly complex topographic work.

Close by, a half-completed piece by Mimili’s artistic matriarch, Milatjari, hangs on the whitewashed wall. Beneath it one of her daughters, Ngupulya Pumani, is embarked on a larger version of the same story, hands moving slowly as she traces out its designs in her own close-dotted style. Arc, tangent line, field, rockhole circle -- the vocabulary of the canvas is picked out in the dots of different scales, in a mesh of colours that create depth: pale pink on dark pink, sunshine on darker flame orange-red. The technique is a natural refinement of the first works made by Milatjari, which rely strongly on the contrast between dark ground and dot curtain and overcoat of surface pattern in restricted, clearly legible colour sets, so that the story-cycle symbols are present and yet softened, presented as artifice, as an invitation to appreciate tradition as a form of art.

This development down the generations in a single family is being pursued in different styles. Through the open doorway, in the front painting room, Ngupulya’s sister Betty is hunched over a classical, finely detailed canvas, arcs and circlets in varying shades of van Gogh yellow set on a stark black ground. To the right sits Puna Yanima, marking out her bright colour fields: the pale rockholes gain their definition from the varied ochre of the painting’s surface; they stand against a set of cross patterns and black voids that draw the eye. Balance, poise, design are the vital elements that run through the various works by the distinct artists in their shared workshop space.

And then there’s the “puzzle artist” of Mimili, silent, half-leaning against the wall, lost in her work. Kathleen Tjapalyi masks the strength of her symbols beneath veiling, intricate designs. Now in her early 70s and at the apex of the desert’s cultural knowledge pyramid, she began painting only a year ago. She works slowly, painstakingly.

Her first canvases were startling. They used colour in an unfamiliar way, putting forward not harmonies of shades but abrupt passages of contrast. There was heavy dotting.

The style emphasised the icons in the painting and obscured them, held them back. The emblems -- hooks, meanders, bifurcating branches -- recalled the work of Amata’s most cryptic female artist, Wawiriya Burton; the look and choice in colour had something of the manner of two painters from early days at Wingellina, Nyakul and Alkuwari Dawson, now dead.

In a testing commercial environment, with well-judged, eye-charming canvases pouring by the hundred from art centres across the bush, this was something else. It conveyed a message from a distant world. What was that message? The narratives embedded in Tjapalyi’s work, like many of the region’s story-cycles, had a sombre edge: the tale of the children confronted by a child-eating woman spirit west of Antara rockhole; the tale of the ngura atiya, the nest where a flesh-eating eagle stared out across the landscape, until a left-handed hero chopped it down: all the bones of the raptor’s victims are still visible, embedded in the stone around the peak on the song-line running from Carmeena to Sandy Bore.

The tone of these stories seemed to lurk in the paint of Tjapalyi’s early efforts: they made for overwhelming art. It was almost too much. She damped down her colours and increased the density of her markings to yield the look she opts for today, brick reds, desert ochres, dusty pinks, cast like a shimmer across the canvas and the sky-blue ground.

Hard stories, ornate art: the alchemy that transforms culture story into pattern. Such is the business of Mimili Maku, an outpost among outposts, the experimental studio where the desert art journey is taking its latest turn. What next, in the years ahead, as Mimili increasingly becomes an official centre for the long-delayed intervention into the Aboriginal lands of desert South Australia, more and more regulated, monitored, controlled? What next, with a plague of problems mounting across the lands, identified with ever-escalating urgency by a cadre of outside experts? The artists have their appointed tasks, and their forthcoming exhibitions, but the unvoiced question lingers for remote communities across their region. What can beauty on canvas strengthen or help preserve?

Nicolas Rothwell May 2012

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Milatjari PUMANI

Ngura Walytja - Antara Acrylic on Linen 150cm x 150cm 265-2012

Dreamtime This painting is about Milatjari’s home, family and culture.

The country is Antara, a is a place not far from Mimili Community. Antara country belonged to Milatjari’s uncle.

Milatjari’s mother and father would take her sister and brother out hunting and gathering for food from Antara.

Milatjari’s father would hunt for kangaroos and goannas; while her mother would take the children to gather bush tucker.

Antara is a very special place for Milatjari. She always paints this country and the Maku Tjukurpa. The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline for this area. The women from Mimili would go to the waterhole north of Mimili. They would clean it out, then wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface and sing inma for Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone). The rock holes, hills and country are depicted in this painting.

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Milatjari PUMANI

Ngura Walytja - Antara Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 122cm 199-2012

Dreamtime This painting is about Milatjari’s home, family and culture.

The country is Antara, a is a place not far from Mimili Community. Antara country belonged to Milatjari’s uncle.

Milatjari’s mother and father would take her sister and brother out hunting and gathering for food from Antara.

Milatjari’s father would hunt for kangaroos and goannas; while her mother would take the children to gather bush tucker.

Antara is a very special place for Milatjari. She always paints this country and the Maku Tjukurpa. The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline for this area. The women from Mimili would go to the waterhole north of Mimili. They would clean it out, then wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface and sing inma for Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone). The rock holes, hills and country are depicted in this painting.

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Milatjari PUMANI

Ngura Walytja - Antara Acrylic on Linen 91cm x 111cm 631-2011

Dreamtime This painting is about Milatjari’s home, family and culture.

The country is Antara, a is a place not far from Mimili Community. Antara country belonged to Milatjari’s uncle.

Milatjari’s mother and father would take her sister and brother out hunting and gathering for food from Antara.

Milatjari’s father would hunt for kangaroos and goannas; while her mother would take the children to gather bush tucker.

Antara is a very special place for Milatjari. She always paints this country and the Maku Tjukurpa. The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline for this area. The women from Mimili would go to the waterhole north of Mimili. They would clean it out, then wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface and sing inma for Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone). The rock holes, hills and country are depicted in this painting.

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Milatjari PUMANI

Ngura Walytja - Antara Acrylic on Linen 101cm x 101cm 276-2012

Dreamtime This painting is about Milatjari’s home, family and culture.

The country is Antara, a is a place not far from Mimili Community. Antara country belonged to Milatjari’s uncle.

Milatjari’s mother and father would take her sister and brother out hunting and gathering for food from Antara.

Milatjari’s father would hunt for kangaroos and goannas; while her mother would take the children to gather bush tucker.

Antara is a very special place for Milatjari. She always paints this country and the Maku Tjukurpa. The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline for this area. The women from Mimili would go to the waterhole north of Mimili. They would clean it out, then wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface and sing inma for Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone). The rock holes, hills and country are depicted in this painting.

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Milatjari PUMANI

Ngura Walytja - Antara Acrylic on Linen 60cm x 120cm 396-2012

Dreamtime This painting is about Milatjari’s home, family and culture.

The country is Antara, a is a place not far from Mimili Community. Antara country belonged to Milatjari’s uncle.

Milatjari’s mother and father would take her sister and brother out hunting and gathering for food from Antara.

Milatjari’s father would hunt for kangaroos and goannas; while her mother would take the children to gather bush tucker.

Antara is a very special place for Milatjari. She always paints this country and the Maku Tjukurpa. The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline for this area. The women from Mimili would go to the waterhole north of Mimili. They would clean it out, then wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface and sing inma for Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone). The rock holes, hills and country are depicted in this painting.

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Ngupulya PUMANI

Maku Inmaku Pakani Acrylic on Linen 120cm x 152cm 332-2012

Dreamtime The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline from Mimili. It is a story about mai (food), a womens tjukurpa. The minyma (women) would go to the kapi tjukurla (water hole) on top of the rocks at Antara.

They would roll rocks from the top of the apu down the mountain. Then, the minyma would clean out the rockhole and wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface with a stick and sing inma and paluni inmaku pakani (dance ceremony). They would then dig under the Maku (witchetty bush) and would find Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone).

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Ngupulya PUMANI

Maku Inmaku Pakani Acrylic on Linen 111cm x 152cm 302-2012

Dreamtime The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline from Mimili. It is a story about mai (food), a womens tjukurpa. The minyma (women) would go to the kapi tjukurla (water hole) on top of the rocks at Antara.

They would roll rocks from the top of the apu down the mountain. Then, the minyma would clean out the rockhole and wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface with a stick and sing inma and paluni inmaku pakani (dance ceremony). They would then dig under the Maku (witchetty bush) and would find Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone).

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Ngupulya PUMANI

Maku Inmaku Pakani Acrylic on Linen 111cm x 152cm 333-2012

Dreamtime The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline from Mimili. It is a story about mai (food), a womens tjukurpa. The minyma (women) would go to the kapi tjukurla (water hole) on top of the rocks at Antara.

They would roll rocks from the top of the apu down the mountain. Then, the minyma would clean out the rockhole and wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface with a stick and sing inma and paluni inmaku pakani (dance ceremony). They would then dig under the Maku (witchetty bush) and would find Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone).

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Ngupulya PUMANI

Maku Inmaku Pakani Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 122cm 112-2012

Dreamtime The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline from Mimili. It is a story about mai (food), a womens tjukurpa. The minyma (women) would go to the kapi tjukurla (water hole) on top of the rocks at Antara.

They would roll rocks from the top of the apu down the mountain. Then, the minyma would clean out the rockhole and wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface with a stick and sing inma and paluni inmaku pakani (dance ceremony). They would then dig under the Maku (witchetty bush) and would find Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone).

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Ngupulya PUMANI

Maku Inmaku Pakani Acrylic on Linen 91cm x 111cm 394-2012

Dreamtime The Maku Tjukurpa (witchetty grub songline) is a significant songline from Mimili. It is a story about mai (food), a womens tjukurpa. The minyma (women) would go to the kapi tjukurla (water hole) on top of the rocks at Antara.

They would roll rocks from the top of the apu down the mountain. Then, the minyma would clean out the rockhole and wait for the rain to come. When the waterhole was full with water they would tap on the waters surface with a stick and sing inma and paluni inmaku pakani (dance ceremony). They would then dig under the Maku (witchetty bush) and would find Maku tjuta (enough Maku for everyone).

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI

Antara Acrylic on Linen 182cm x 120cm 317-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI

Antara Acrylic on Linen 107cm x 152cm 161-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI

Antara Acrylic on Linen 107cm x 152cm 301-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI

Antara Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 122cm 171-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI

Antara Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 122cm 311-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI

Antara Acrylic on Linen 120cm x 120cm 285-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI

Antara Acrylic on Linen 60cm x 120cm 336-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Tuppy Ngintja GOODWIN

Kungka Kutjara Tjukurpa Acrylic on Linen 198cm x 198cm 352-2012

Dreamtime This painting about Kungka Kutjara (two ladies) that met at a rockhole, near Bumbali Creek, not far from the Northern Territory and South Australian border. This tjukurpa tells the moving story of an elder sister bringing her missing younger sister back to her birth country after a long period of separation. Tuppy has painted a conceptual map of the country formed of expansive colour, signs and marks of the two sisters travels and sacred presence in the land.

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Tuppy Ngintja GOODWIN

Kungka Kutjara Tjukurpa Acrylic on Linen 198cm x 120cm 114-2012

Dreamtime This painting about Kungka Kutjara (two ladies) that met at a rockhole, near Bumbali Creek, not far from the Northern Territory and South Australian border. This tjukurpa tells the moving story of an elder sister bringing her missing younger sister back to her birth country after a long period of separation. Tuppy has painted a conceptual map of the country formed of expansive colour, signs and marks of the two sisters travels and sacred presence in the land.

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Tuppy Ngintja GOODWIN

Kungka Kutjara Tjukurpa Acrylic on Linen 137cm x 168cm 230-2011

Dreamtime This painting about Kungka Kutjara (two ladies) that met at a rockhole, near Bumbali Creek, not far from the Northern Territory and South Australian border. This tjukurpa tells the moving story of an elder sister bringing her missing younger sister back to her birth country after a long period of separation. Tuppy has painted a conceptual map of the country formed of expansive colour, signs and marks of the two sisters travels and sacred presence in the land.

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Tuppy Ngintja GOODWIN

Kungka Kutjara Tjukurpa Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 153cm 293-2011

Dreamtime This painting about Kungka Kutjara (two ladies) that met at a rockhole, near Bumbali Creek, not far from the Northern Territory and South Australian border. This tjukurpa tells the moving story of an elder sister bringing her missing younger sister back to her birth country after a long period of separation. Tuppy has painted a conceptual map of the country formed of expansive colour, signs and marks of the two sisters travels and sacred presence in the land.

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Tuppy Ngintja GOODWIN

Kungka Kutjara Tjukurpa Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 152cm 292-2012

Dreamtime This painting about Kungka Kutjara (two ladies) that met at a rockhole, near Bumbali Creek, not far from the Northern Territory and South Australian border. This tjukurpa tells the moving story of an elder sister bringing her missing younger sister back to her birth country after a long period of separation. Tuppy has painted a conceptual map of the country formed of expansive colour, signs and marks of the two sisters travels and sacred presence in the land.

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Tuppy Ngintja GOODWIN

Kungka Kutjara Tjukurpa Acrylic on Linen 107cm x 152cm 714-10

Dreamtime This painting about Kungka Kutjara (two ladies) that met at a rockhole, near Bumbali Creek, not far from the Northern Territory and South Australian border. This tjukurpa tells the moving story of an elder sister bringing her missing younger sister back to her birth country after a long period of separation. Tuppy has painted a conceptual map of the country formed of expansive colour, signs and marks of the two sisters travels and sacred presence in the land.

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Kathleen TJAPALYI

Minyma Mamu Acrylic on Linen 121cm x 152cm 461-2011

Dreamtime Kathleen’s painting depcits the minyma mamu, a storyline that passes through Antara, a place not far from Mimili.

The Minyma mamu (spooky spirit) was trying to trick the children so she could eat them. She yelled “ Wai tjitji tjuta, bring me waru (firestick) bring me waru”, but the children were clever and they said “Palya, we will bring it to you”.

But instead they went to the rockhole and put out their firesticks so the minyma could not see them. Then they ran away.

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Kathleen TJAPALYI

Minyma Mamu Acrylic on Linen 107cm x 152cm 307-2012

Dreamtime Kathleen’s painting depcits the minyma mamu, a storyline that passes through Antara, a place not far from Mimili.

The Minyma mamu (spooky spirit) was trying to trick the children so she could eat them. She yelled “ Wai tjitji tjuta, bring me waru (firestick) bring me waru”, but the children were clever and they said “Palya, we will bring it to you”.

But instead they went to the rockhole and put out their firesticks so the minyma could not see them. Then they ran away.

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Kathleen TJAPALYI

Minyma Mamu Acrylic on Linen 91cm x 111cm 74-2011

Dreamtime Kathleen’s painting depcits the minyma mamu, a storyline that passes through Antara, a place not far from Mimili.

The Minyma mamu (spooky spirit) was trying to trick the children so she could eat them. She yelled “ Wai tjitji tjuta, bring me waru (firestick) bring me waru”, but the children were clever and they said “Palya, we will bring it to you”.

But instead they went to the rockhole and put out their firesticks so the minyma could not see them. Then they ran away.

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Kathleen TJAPALYI

Minyma Mamu Acrylic on Linen 91cm x 91cm 397-2012

Dreamtime Kathleen’s painting depcits the minyma mamu, a storyline that passes through Antara, a place not far from Mimili.

The Minyma mamu (spooky spirit) was trying to trick the children so she could eat them. She yelled “ Wai tjitji tjuta, bring me waru (firestick) bring me waru”, but the children were clever and they said “Palya, we will bring it to you”.

But instead they went to the rockhole and put out their firesticks so the minyma could not see them. Then they ran away.

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Puna YANIMA

Antara Acrylic on Linen 150cm x 150cm 202-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Puna YANIMA

Antara Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 152cm 54-2012

Dreamtime Antara is a sacred place for Anangu. It holds many tjukurpa (songlines) stories that cross this land. This painting depicts this special place. Antara has a very important rockhole where the women would perform inmaku pakani, a dance ceremony that would create enough maku for everyone. The painting also depicts the landsacpe which is surrounded with rocks, rockholes, creeks and mountains.

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Judy MARTIN

Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) Acrylic on Linen 110cm x 152cm 554-2011

Dreamtime Judy has painted her fathers country near Nyapari, Wakura.

Judy has painted the surrounding kapi tjukula (water holes), tali (sand hills) and puli (mountain ranges). The passages of water on the lands are important and cherished by all.

Wakura is an important and sacred place for Judy and her family.

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Judy MARTIN

Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) Acrylic on Linen 122cm x 122cm 312-2012

Dreamtime Judy has painted her fathers country near Nyapari, Wakura.

Judy has painted the surrounding kapi tjukula (water holes), tali (sand hills) and puli (mountain ranges). The passages of water on the lands are important and cherished by all.

Wakura is an important and sacred place for Judy and her family.

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Judy MARTIN

Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) Acrylic on Linen 91cm x 111cm 299-2012

Dreamtime Judy has painted her fathers country near Nyapari, Wakura.

Judy has painted the surrounding kapi tjukula (water holes), tali (sand hills) and puli (mountain ranges). The passages of water on the lands are important and cherished by all.

Wakura is an important and sacred place for Judy and her family.

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Judy MARTIN

Ngayuku Ngura (My Country) Acrylic on Linen 70cm x 70cm 305-2012

Dreamtime Judy has painted her fathers country near Nyapari, Wakura.

Judy has painted the surrounding kapi tjukula (water holes), tali (sand hills) and puli (mountain ranges). The passages of water on the lands are important and cherished by all.

Wakura is an important and sacred place for Judy and her family.

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Linda PUNA

Ngayuku Ngura (My Home) Acrylic on Linen 91cm x 111cm 94-2012

Dreamtime This painting depicts the kapi tjukula (water holes), murpu and apu (mountains and rocks), tali (sand hills) and punu (trees) that surround Ngayuku community, Mimili. Mimili has many ancestral songlines that criss-cross this land. A really important place to Anangu from Mimili is Antara, a cermeonial ground on top of a hill. This is where they would perform inma (song and dance) to create mai, food, enough maku (witchetty grub) for everyone.

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Robert FIELDING

Kunkarangkanypa Tjukurpa (Seven Sisters) Acrylic on Linen 107cm x 153cm 2-2012

Dreamtime My painting is the story of the seven sisters and wati (man). This is an old story that has been told to Anangu for thousands of years.You can see the seven sisters today at night as a group of stars in the sky. A long time ago, the seven sisters came down from the sky and walked on the earth. They travelled north from Port Augusta, a wati (man) saw them and followed them. The seven sisters were then being chased by this wati. When the sisters would stop for a break the wati would watch them and decide which sister he liked the most. Much of this story is secret/sacred and only a small part can be revealed.

Mimili is sited within the beautiful Everard Rangers on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in the northwest of South Australia and 488 kilometres south-west of Alice Springs. Mimili is home to 300 Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people who have been living in the area for millennia in harmony with nature and acting as custodians of the land and the Tjukurpa (creation stories). Mimili was formerly known as Everard Park, which was a cattle station that was returned to Aboriginal ownership through the 1981 AP Lands Act. Mimili Community was incorporated as an Aboriginal Community in 1975.

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Milatjari PUMANI Language Country Born

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: Yankunytjatjara : Amuroona : 1928

Milatjari was born in 1928 out bush at Amuroona, a station between Indulkana Community and Mimili Community on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in South Australia. The country she paints is Antara, a place not far from Mimili Community.

Antara belonged to Milatjari’s uncle and this is where she grew up. Antara is a special place where the women would dig for Maku (grubs). Milatjari remembers sleeping here with her mother and father at night in walytja (shelter) by the fire.

Milatjari was found at Victory Well by station workers when she was a young girl. They gave her clothes, sugar and flour. She would later move into the settlement with her family to work, this was formerly known as Everard Park station. Milatjari’s father was Nyapi or King Everard and her mother was Mantjangka Everard. She had a brother Mike Kanari (dec) and a sister Susan Wangin (dec). Milatjari met her husband Sam in Mimili and they had five children together; Betty, Ngupulya, Ken, Michael and Lewey.

Milatjari is a very important lady in the community, she has passed on a huge amount of knowledge about the land, women’s business and tells many tjukurpa stories that are painted and told today.

Collections Western Desert Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne,VIC Desert Country Collection, South Australian Art Gallery, Adelaide, SA Corrigan Collection Art Bank Private Collections Art Gallery of New South Wales Desert Collection

Ngupulya PUMANI Language Country Born

: Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara : Mimili : 1948

Ngupulya is a senior Pitjantjatjara committed to fostering traditional law and culture and painting. Ngupulya was born in Mimili. Her mother is Milatjari Pumani and her country is Antara, west of Mimili. Ngupulya’s father is Sam Pumani (dec) and his country is near Watarru on the APY Lands. Ngupulya’s grandparents on Milatjari’s side are King Everard or Nyapi and her grandmother was Mantjangka Everard. Ngupulya is the eldest of five children. She has three brothers Ken, Luey, Apada and a sister Betty who all live in Mimili.

Ngupulya has four daughters and a son, Janita, Sandra, Uni, Josina and a son Bradley (dec).

Ngupulya is married to Shannon Kantji and they have four grand-children and two greatgrand-children.

Ngupulya Pumani began painting in 2009, she has been inspired by her mother to portray her country with broad brush strokes and intense luminous palettes. Strongly anchored to country and the wapar it holds, Ngupulya weaves the stories from her country across her canvas. Her paintings portray a truth, a unique rawness, but also a joy of culture and tradition.

Collections Western Desert Collection, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Art Bank Collection, Australian Government Art Rental W & V McGeoch Collection, Melbourne Kelch Collection, Freiburg, Germany Private Collections Art Gallery of New South Wales Desert Collection

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Betty Kuntiwa PUMANI Language Country Born

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: Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara : Mimili : 1963

Betty was born in the bush near Perentie Bore about 30 kms from Mimili Community.

Her mother is Milatjari Pumani and her father is Sam Pumani (dec). Sam’s country is near Watarru on the APY Lands. Betty’s grandparents on Milatjari’s side are King Everard (Nyapi) and her grandmother was Mantjangka Everard. Betty has three brothers Ken, Luey, Apada and a sister Ngupulya and they all live in Mimili. Betty is married to Litja Brown from Mimili and they have two children together, Marina and Max. Betty worked at the Mimili store then at the Mimili clinic as a ngangkari healer. Later she was a teacher at Mimili Anangu School and she began painting at Mimili Maku Art Centre in 2007. Betty’s paintings depict her mother’s country Antara, a ceremonial site in northwest of Mimili community.

Collections Private Collections

Tuppy Ngintja GOODWIN Language Country Born

: Pitjantjatjara : Bumbali Creek, NT : 1960

Tuppy is a senior Pitjantjatjara woman committed to fostering traditional law and culture, dance and painting. Tuppy’s father’s name was Nguyarangu (dec) and his country was near Docker River. Her mother’s name was Emily Nyanyanta and her country was Wintutjuru, west of Fregon on the APY Lands. Tuppy Goodwin was born in the bush near Bumbali Creek and she moved to Mimili with her family when she was a baby. At the time Mimili was called Everard Park, it was a cattle station which was eventually returned to the Yankunytjatjara people in the mid-1960s. Her brother is Robin Kankapankatja from Fregon. She has an older sister Ngilan Dodd and a younger brother Willy Pompey who both live in Mimili.

Tuppy had three children with Reggie Goodwin (dec), David, Maxine and Neville Goodwin. Tuppy was a pre-school teacher at the Mimili Anangu School for thirty years, she retired in 2009 and began painting at the Art Centre in 2010. Tuppy lives in Mimili with her husband Mumu Mike Williams and she has three grand-children Jasmine, Eva and Kishana.

Collections Desert Country Collection, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, SA Corrigan Art Collection Art Bank Collection James Selva-Nangam Collection Private Collections

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Kathleen TJAPALYI Language Country Born

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: Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara : East of Mimili : 1948

Kathleen Tjapalyi is a senior Yankunytjatjara woman and she was born at Iwantja, east of Mimili Community. Her father’s country is Makirri, near Fregon and her mother’s country is Iltur, (Coffin Hill). Her family travelled over from Watarru once they had heard that white people were handing out rations at Everard Station, so this is why Kathleen was born on the east side. Her family continued to move around before they settled and found work at Everard Park station in Mimili. Her father became a fencer and built a lot of the fences for Everard Park Station.

Kathleen grew up on the outskirts of Everard Park Station in the bush and later worked at the station herself cleaning dishes, tending to the garden and looking after the children of the station managers. Kathleen met her husband in Mimili, Jack Tjapalyi (dec) and they had three children together; two sons and a daughter. Her eldest son has passed away.

Her son Trevor and daughter Tanya live with her in Mimili.

Kathleen was raised in the bush and has lived a traditional life. She has a great knowledge of traditional inma and country and she continues to pass this on to the younger generations through her paintings and Inma. Kathleen began painting late 2010; her marks are raw and her works are set to excite national and international markets.

Collections Private Collections

Puna YANIMA Language Country Born

: Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara : Rose Hill : 1955

Puna Yanima was born at Rose Hill Station not far from Indulkana community on the APY Lands, South Australia. Her father was Norman Yanima and his country was Piltati near Nyapari on the APY Lands. Her mother was Lucy Yanima (dec) and she was from Indulkana. Puna has two brothers Dennis and Leslie, and two sisters Jauna and Tania. Puna grew up at Indulkana community, where she met her husband Shannon. Puna worked at the Indulkana store for many years. They would later move to Mimili and they have four children; Linda, Harry, Myra & Shaun.

Puna is a senior woman who practices traditional law and culture. Puna is deeply connected to country; she speaks to country and has a deep knowledge of Inma (traditional music and dance).

Collections Art Bank Collection Private Collections

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Judy MARTIN Language Country Born

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: Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara : Mimili : 1963

Judy Martin was born near Mimili. Judy’s father was Pompey Everard (dec) and his country was Wakura, near Nyapari on the APY Lands. Her mother was Molly Pompey (dec) her country was Puntiri near Sandy Bore, 30kms South West of Mimili Community. Judy is the youngest of four children. Judy has two brothers and a sister. Buddy, Jimmy and Marlene Pompey. Judy lives in Mimili with her partner Muntjanti Willy Martin and they have two children together, Joseph and Maria.

Collections Art Bank Private Collections

Linda PUNA Language Country Born

: Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara : Mimili : 1974

Linda was born in Mimili, her parents are Puna Yanima and Shannon Kantji. Linda began painting in 2006, her style is minimal and depicts the country that surrounds Mimili.

Linda has a unique application of paint with her brush and her palette is contrasting and harmonious.

Linda was the first Anangu person to be allowed back to the APY Lands in a motorized wheelchair to be with her family. She is highly engaged with community and APY Lands politics.

Collections Private Collections

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Robert FIELDING Language Country Born

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: Western Arranda/Yankunytjatjara/Pitjantjatjara : Mimili : 1969

Robert’s mother is Garieva Fielding is a descendant of Afghan/Western Aranda (SA) and she was born at Dalouse. Robert’s father Bruce Fielding (dec.) was Yankunytjatjara from Finke (Aputula) he was born at Lilla Creek but as a child he was taken from his mother and raised in Colebrook Home, at Quorn, SA. Robert’s grandmother was Miriam Khan (dec.) and she was from Henbury Station. Her husband was James Inkamala (dec.) and he was from Nhtaria Hermannsburg.

Robert is the youngest of 12 children. Continuing the tradition of large families he and his wife Kaye Lowah have 9 children of their own. Zaachariaha, Zaavan, Zibeon, Zeldon Fielding, Payrozza, Partimah, Peshwah, Priayangka and Zedekiaha Fielding. Robert’s wife Kaye is of Torres Strait/Kanaka heritage.

Collections Art Bank Collection Australian Government Art Rental

Images of Mimili Maku

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Images include the murpu and apu (mountains and rocks) and punu (trees) in Mimili. The artists translate these circumstances of nature into their paintings.

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