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Pilbara flowers

I paint my country in my own style. We have so many beautiful flowers that are watered by the rains. The Pilbara is a place of many beautiful colours.

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Pilbara flowers

I paint my country in my own style. We have so many beautiful flowers that are watered by the rains. The Pilbara is a place of many beautiful colours.

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Pilbara flowers

I paint my country in my own style. We have so many beautiful flowers that are watered by the rains. The Pilbara is a place of many beautiful colours.

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Sea Turtle

When we see sea turtles it can mean that they can be mating and that makes us aware that they will soon be going to lay eggs. Some of our people eat the eggs and turtles.

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Vase of Flowers

Vase of flowers. This is my painting of a vase of flowers ,I love painting flowers we have many beautiful flowers in our country

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Woven Mat

Traditionally, Nganiyal (conical mats) were used as an insect screen when erected, and as a sitting mat when folded. They are used in Ceremony as well as a functional item. 

Nowadays, artists weave many different shapes including flat, round and oblong. 

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Untitled

This is Wurta Amy French’s Country- her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories and physical characteristics of that place, has today become an important means of cultural maintenance. 

Wurta’s ngurra encompasses the Country that she and her family walked in the pujiman (traditional, desert-dwelling) era. At this time Wurta travelled nomadically with her own and other family groups. The Country they traversed encompassed an enormous tract of land, all around the Karlamily (Rudall River) region and through to Tiwa (Canning Stock Route Well 26) .

Wurta was born at Wantili (Warntili, Canning Stock Route Well 25). She grew up, walked and hunted primarily around water sources Pangkartal, Yalpalpa, Walirrlirri, Yanytikuji, Wartararra, Tintinmarran, Pimurlu, Raarki (Canning Stock Route Well 27), and Tiwa. Her family continued to live nomadically before eventually deciding to move to Jigalong Mission along with many other relatives following an extreme and prolonged drought in the 1960s. 

Portrayed in this work are features of Wurta’s ngurra, such as the hills, gorges and valleys, warta (trees, vegetation), and the individually named water sources she and her family camped at. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman period, and are generally depicted with circular forms. 

The encyclopaedic knowledge of the location, quality and seasonal availability of the hundreds of water bodies found in one’s Country sustained Martu as they travelled across their Country, hunting and gathering, visiting family, and fulfilling ceremonial obligations. They would traverse very large distances annually, visiting specific areas in the dry and wet season depending on the availability of water and the corresponding cycles of plant and animal life on which hunting and gathering bush tucker was reliant. As they travelled and hunted they would also burn areas of Country, generating a greater diversity of plant and animal life.