Busy ants are shown here collecting food before winter. Bunjima people call the food ‘mulma nujnu’. This name comes from the leaves, and another name is ‘ngardanu’, which comes from the branches.
Name: Nina Smith
Biography:
Nina Smith was born in Wittenoom in 1961 and lived there until she was five. She then moved to join her older brothers and sisters at the Roebourne hostel/school. Her parents' work allowed them to move to Roebourne in the late 1950s and Nina has lived here ever since. Nina started painting in the first half of 2010. She had been a frequent visitor to Yinjaa-Barni Art, spending time watching her artist friends and family painting, until she was finally inspired to take up the brush herself. Nina now finds painting relaxing, saying it makes her use her imagination, especially when she is trying to decide what she would like to paint and how to translate her ideas onto canvas. Nina is not a great believer in doing dot painting to express her ideas as she feels dotting is not personally or culturally relevant for her. She has experimented with a variety of techniques and colours and is beginning to find a style of her own. The subjects she paints are based on her personal history, including childhood memories of collecting bush potatoes and other bush foods with her mother. She turns to her mother and her elder sister as constant points of reference for her paintings. Nina paints mainly about bush food and native medicine plants from her home country around Wittenoom and Tom Price as taught to her by her mother and father. Nina's mother is a well-respected elder in the community and Nina is constantly talking to her mother about her country, drawing inspiration from her. She also paints honey ants and bush ants, and although not part of her ancestral country, she likes to paint sea turtles as she derives so much joy from watching them. Nina's work has quickly proven to be very popular - a great achievement in such a short time.
Country Bluebells The Country Bluebell is one of the common flowers growing on the edges of the river bank and around the edge of hillsides. It also grows in open plains country.
Springflowers This artwork shows the flowers blooming in the Spring, showing it’s beauty. There are sturt peas, mulla mulla and bluebells.
Millstream Emily is one of Yinjaa-Barni Art’s emerging artists. Emily painted this artwork after returning to Country on an art centre camp to Millstream. She collected natural pigments from Millstream crossing and ground the rock Read more…