I paint my Mother’s country. I travelled all around my country with my mother when I was child, my mother showed me the bush medicine and bush tucker.
The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint altyerr (dreaming stories). The artists paint their country where those stories sit.
This is my country out in Utopia an outstation called Soapy Bore it’s my Father’s country, there’s big soakage, hills, bush medicine and bush tucker. All my family paint, my grandmother, my mother and aunties. I like to paint, I think about my country, the colours and my family who have gone.
The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint altyerr (dreaming stories). The artists paint their country where those stories sit.
Minnie is the daughter of Annie Kemarre, her joyous, colourful, patterned paintings depict local bush medicine and bush flower plants and are distinctly her own style
“Bush medicine plants are used for healing on the body and for drinking. We make this by grinding the plants with a rock, we use the juice and the fibre of the plant.
We collect bush medicine plants when we are out hunting. Different kinds of plants grow during different seasons.
There are lots of different medicines, we know what their stories are, we learnt them from our parents and we teach these stories to our children.”
Bush medicine knowledge is still strong in Ampilatwatja, it continues to be passed down to the younger generations and is widely used.
When the women go hunting they often gather bush medicine. The plants depicted here are found in the country around Ampilatwatja, they are used for soothing skin infections and to make a drink to help with colds and coughs.
Painting bush medicine stories is important because it helps to maintain a strong knowledge and culture for the community.
This is my mothers country, Tijamburra, we go hunting there for wild onions, goannas, echidnas and sugarbag honey in the trees. I like to hunt there, there’s water all year round. Even if it doesn’t look like there is, we follow the bird tracks to know where to dig and we find water.
From living here in the remote community of Ampilatwatja, going hunting out bush and traveling for family and ceremonies Eileen knows this land, her country.
The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint altyerr (dreaming stories). The artists paint their country where those stories sit.
The Pilbara is a land of many Beautiful colours Its beauty blends into the mother earth and against the red,purple hills in the distance in time and season the yellow Wattles, Mulla and Sturt pea take its toll as the country comes alive with the wild flowers watered by the rain and heavy due during the night. Land and our country also tells a wonderful story about our ancestor’s they walk and lived on the land always gathering food such as fish from the river, hunting kangaroo’s, emu and tracking goanna’s also gathering bush fruits and medicine.
I like country music, and stock camp paintings, my paintings are all about those stock camp life, the horses, cattle, dogs and the music, I listen and play country today. It’s the life that I grew up around in a stock camp. I used to watch the old fellas mustering and breaking in horses. It was a great upbringing, disciplined and with strong family connections.
Hunting was the most important thing and we had to hunt to provide for our families. There was no technology in those times. Sometimes I paint cars, Holdens, Fords, and Valiants when they are new and when they are rusty. Meeting new people and sharing stories is what I like.
This is the Rainbow Serpent cutting through the Country leaving behind the deep pools which have permanently stayed there throughout time on Yindjibarndi Country.
The Rainbow Serpent cutting through the Country leaving behind deep permanent pools through out the Yindjibarndi Country.
These are the beautiful wildflowers that grow in my country. They grow amongst the spinifex and bloom at all different times of the year.