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Published by CompNet Systems on October 26, 2023

The old woman, the magpie and the old man

‘Nginjinyi ngarne junpanh-nginji ngalanj wanamayinte ngakinji ngapunjinginja marlukanj piya wana-njinte-nguyu langkurnul pelitch-puwa nyaniyitjite nginya ngarnji. Kerrerangkulji ngininiwarn-ngiyi ngalern, “nguwan nyungurn nimpin thanja piya wiyinji-ngu, thet panjkirrem nyalinj wayniya, merrep.” Pernenante nginini nginjinj jirakanj, kerrerangkulji hginjinj nginini-ngi, thala langkurnel “Merrep-karri Nyananinja, ngerrepakpe ngiyitji nginja marlukanj nginiyin ngerrepanh.’

‘This story was told to me by my mum a long time ago. It is about an old woman, a magpie and an old man. A long time ago in the dreaming, a old man had a fight with his wife. she ran away and hid from him in a cave, a little while later the old man came looking for her. The magpie seen him coming and told the woman “don’t move, don’t come out, that old man coming for you to belt you” so the woman hid in cave so the old man couldn’t see her.

They then all turned into stone and they are still there today, this story is on Violet Valley, my mothers Country.’

Categories: WARMUN ART

Name: SHIRLEY PURDIE

Language: English, Gija, Kimberley Kriol

Community: Warmun

Biography:

Shirley Purdie has been painting for more than twenty years and is an artist of great significance and seniority. Her cultural knowledge and artistic skill complement each other to produce a practice that holds great strength. Shirley is also a prominent leader in Warmun community and an incisive cross-cultural communicator.

Inspired by more senior Warmun artists including her late mother, the great Madigan Thomas, as well as Rover Thomas and Queenie McKenzie, Shirley began to paint her country in the early 1990s. Shirley’s uncle, artist Jack Britten, said to her, ‘Why don’t you try yourself for painting, you might be all right.'

Shirley says: 'It’s good to learn from old people. They keep saying when you paint you can remember that country, just like to take a photo, but there’s the Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and everything. Good to put it in painting, your country, so kids can know and understand. When the old people die, young people can read the stories from the paintings. They can learn from the paintings and maybe they want to start painting too.’ Shirley’s body of work explores sites and narratives associated with the country of her mother and father and is characterized by a bold use of richly textured ochre.

Significant places such as Baloowa, Jirragin and Gilban lie on Country now taken in by Violet Valley and Mabel Downs cattle stations. Much of her work also explores spirituality and the relationship between Gija conceptions of Ngarranggarni (Dreaming) and Catholicism. In 2007 Shirley was awarded the Blake Prize for Religious Art for her major work Stations of the Cross.

Colonial histories of the region also figure in Shirley’s work in which she relates accounts of early contact, massacre, warfare and indentured labour since the incursion of pastoralists into Gija land in the late 1800s.

Shirley is presently working on a major publication of great cultural and ecological value, documenting through painting and in Gija language the plants and trees of her country - Goowoolem Gijam.

© the artist / art centre