December 2025

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Michelle Pula Holmes – My Country

When I go out hunting I always like to see the colour in the trees, the light, the dark and the bush medicine plants growing on the sand hills. The colours change at sunrise and sunset. I like hunting and seeing my country.

I love to paint since childhood. My paintings show my deep love for my country and the beauty I see.

The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint altyerr (dreaming stories). The artists paint their country where those stories sit.

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Rita Pitjara Beasley – My Father’s Country

“This is my Father’s country.

This place is our hunting place. I always go with my daughters and their children, I show them this place and teach them about the swampy country. We hunt for goannas, bush potato, bush tomato and after the big rain the bush medicine is picked and the roots are dug up to be used.

It is important as my mother taught me this and now I teach my family.”

The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint altyerr (dreaming stories). The artists paint their country where those stories sit.

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Nancy Pitjara Frank – Bush Flowers

I was born in the bush at Ammaroo Station, along the Sandover.  I have never seen the ocean or a big city. My mother and father were strong healthy people who taught me and my younger sister Rita the traditional way to hunt for Kangaroo, Goanna and Porcupine. 

We know how to gather bush tucker (secrets of the earth) and bush medicine plants.  My mother used grinding stones to make seed damper.

When I paint I think about good memories, being a young girl and walking through the land.  My mother made paint from two stones and showed us ceremony painting and how to sing and dance for ceremonies.  I still sing and dance and collect the bush medicines, I like to make tea from the small purple flowers of Arreth (hill fuchsia).

Painting bush medicine stories is important because it helps to maintain a strong knowledge and culture for the community.

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Janella Kemarre Ross – Summer Bush Tucker

During the Summer months kedgadrr (bush tomatoes) and il quarldrr (bush banana) are especially bountiful at this time of year, bush foods that are found in Alyawarr country, the land of the people of Ampilatwatja.

Communicating bush foods through painting is an important way of teaching younger generations and maintaining a strong culture.

The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint altyerr (dreaming stories). The artists paint their country where those stories sit.

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Leanne Teece – Anterrengeny – My Father’s Country

Anterrengeny is my Father’s country. I paint the country that I come from, the beautiful landscapes and the many colours as they change during the session.

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Colleen Ngwarraye Morton – Hunting

Colleen is one of the original artists in the Utopian batik movement in the 1980’s and has been successfully painting ever since.

Colleen’s paintings often depict her Grandfather’s country where her family have hunted for many years. As a child she was taught about the seasonal bush medicines and plants that grew there and how to gather them. “When I was a little girl I would go and collect the seed from the altywart grass with my grandmothers. They would teach us how to hang on to the tree and grind the seeds with our feet. We would carry the seed in our coolamon back to the camp, then make damper, cook it on the fire and eat with our families”.

The elders would teach the importance of looking after country and that the sacred ancestral spirits watch over and protect the animals and plants. Her Mother and Grandmother taught her about bush medicine, a topic that is especially important to Colleen and is expressed within her paintings.

The layers of Colleen’s paintings are as detailed and complex as the stories she paints. Her paintings help to keep her culture strong and keep the stories alive to be shared and used to educate current and future generations.