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Published by CompNet Systems on

Yalka at Karinyarra

This is the story of the Napaltjarri women digging for yalka (bush onion) in Karinyarra (Mount Wedge) country. Karinyarra is a two-hour drive from Haasts Bluff and is the country of Japaltjarri men and Napaltjiarri women. The circle shapes depict the women digging for bush onion, the hills are the curved lines and the rivers are the lines. There are camels walking around in this country. Bush onion is used for eating and for making a drinking bush medicine. There is bush onion growing all year round, one can find them around the rockholes. The yalka is harvested by using a stick and digging it into the ground to make it soft, then the yalka can be taken out by hand.

“This is my grandfather’s Dreaming. He is my mother’s father and this Dreaming is from her line. Here, women are digging for bush onion around the river in Karinyarra – north of Papunya. The lines in my paintings show the rivers. The circular shapes are the woman digging for the bush onion around the rockholes.”

Categories: Ikuntji Artists

Name: Mary Roberts

Language: Luritja

Community: Haasts Bluff

Biography:

Mary Roberts was born at Haasts Bluff in 1964. She attended school there until she was eleven, when the family moved to Papunya, where her father continued his role as a Lutheran pastor and also worked in the Papunya school, composing many titles for the Literature Production Centre .

Painting goes back two generations in Mary Roberts’ family, but so far she is the only one of her five siblings to take up painting. She joined Papunya Tjupi in 2008, having been taught how to paint on canvas by her father Murphy Roberts Tjupurrula, who was one of the most respected senior lawmen in the Papunya community and also a Lutheran pastor. Murphy worked in the church at Haasts Bluff while Mary was a young girl and she remembers watching her maternal grandfather Limpi Tjapangati, one of the early Papunya Tula painters, working on his canvases. Elements of his distinctive style are discernible in Mary’s work. Mary completed her education at Yirara College in Alice Springs, reaching Year 8. Returning to Papunya she worked for ten years in the Papunya preschool as a teachers aide. Mary’s aunty Lorabelle Puntungunka, her mother’s younger sister, joined Papunya Tjupi Arts at the outset. It was she who told Mary she should paint her grandfather’s stories. Mary said, “She told me to paint before she passed away last year. I was thinking that I want to paint that story. I was thinking of doing painting with story on it. I have only just started painting.”

Mary moved back to Haasts Bluff in 2016 and has been painting at Ikuntji Artists since.

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