This is my Mother’s country out in the desert. My mother was born in this country that is why l paint her country. Makes me think how she walked for miles to get to other people’s country but still thinks of her own country out in the desert.
Name: Junjun Jill Jack
Community: Fitzroy Crossing
Biography:
Junjun Jill Jack was born at Christmas Creek around 1955. Her parents had been part of the large desert migrations of the 1940′s and 1950′s, where people moved north towards the cattle station country of the Fitzroy Valley.
Jill Jack’s mother came from Japingka Waterhole in Walmajarri country, and had travelled north with her first, older husband. Her father came from Wirnpa in Wangkajunga country, and travelled via the Canning Stock Route to Balgo, before moving west to Christmas Creek.
Jill Jack grew up with two brothers at Christmas Creek, where she worked for a time at the station homestead. Her children, two daughters, have also lived all their lives at Christmas Creek, which became the location where Wankatjungka Community was established during the 1980′s.
Jill Jack began painting with the Wangkajunka project in the early 2000s and the Ngurra Arts Project. She now lives in Fitzroy Crossing at the renal hostel and has been painting at Mangkaja for the last two years.Using the aerial mapping style of desert painters Jill paints elements of her ancestral homelands through stories she has inherited from her mother and father’s country .
Jilji- Pinti Lake “This is about Jilji (sandhills) on both sides and Pinti Lake in the middle. The grass and trees grows around the Pinti Lake”.
Kurtal Country “This place in the desert. It’s all my country. My father took me all around there when I was a young boy.”
