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Wirrulyu

“I can tell the story for my grandmother’s place, Wirrulyu. That’s her ngurra (home Country, camp), country. She was born in the bush near there. She’s Ningurra Naparrula Gibson. She’s an artist too.

Wirrulyu is a jurnu (soak), this side [west] of big rock, yapu (rock). It’s  near to Kiwirrkurra community in WA.”

– Roma Gibson

Name: Roma Gibson


Language: Pintubi


Community: Kunawarritji


Biography:

"I was born in Papunya, Northern Territory, old clinic hospital in 1975. I grew up in Tjukurla, Kintore and Kiwirrkurra communities. I got a family all there. I moved over to Kunawarritji in 1986 to get married to my husband. We lived Kunawarritji for a long time, I still live there. 

I started painting with my grandmother, Ningurra Nyapurrula Gibson. I was helping my grandmother doing her own one. She was a painter in Alice springs. I paint her story now.

My mother, Mary Gibson, and brother, Bob Gibson, are also painters. They paint with Kaltukujarra art centre in Docker River, NT."

 - Roma Gibbs

 

Roma is a Pintupi woman. Her family, along with many others, were forcibly removed from their country due to weapons testing from Woomera in South Australia, and relocated to Papunya. In 1981 Kintore community, 530km west of  Alice Springs, was founded with the Return to Country movement. It was in this community and it's surrounds that Roma spent most of her childhood years, before moving to Kunawarritji as a young woman. Here she married her husband, and continues to live to present day.


© the artist / art centre