Ngkwerlp (Bush Tobacco) Pitjuri, grows in the bush and hills. We cut the big fresh leaves off and dry it. We get the ash from the white gums. You cut up the bush tobacco and roll it in the ash then chew it – it burns your tongue but it’s tasty. It makes your body feel good and you get a buzz.
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.
I have just started painting, my grandmother Elizabeth Ngwarraye Bonney has been teaching me, she tells me all about the bush flowers.
This is the Atwakey (wild orange).
Shadowland – my great Grandmothers Country, is where we go hunting. We hunt goanna and bush turkey. We swim in the river. We look for bush banana, bush potato and wild oranges. I am inspired by the beautiful wild flowers that grow there. Being on my Great grandmothers country makes me happy and content.
Tijamburra is my Grandmother’s country. It is very special place for my family. We take the kids and go camping, we go hunting for sugarbags and goannas. After the rain the beautiful purple flowers bloom and we pick bush medicines to make teas and balms. I want my kids to come back with their kids, to remember this special place that makes me proud and happy
Rosie has painted her Father’s country, where she can always find bush tucker and bush medicine. She is very happy when out bush hunting and gathering, as it brings back memories of her childhood when she used to live traditionally off of the land with her family.
Rosie uses these hunting trips as her inspiration for her artworks, each one reflecting the layered landscape and various colours as she has seen them. They are always changing, with the light of day and the seasons of the year.
Rosie enjoys and understands the importance of painting bush medicine plants. They help in the healing of her people and it keeps the tradition and knowledge strong. These particular plants are very plentiful after rain and can be used for numerous conditions, such as skin irritations, flu, coughs and infections.
Rosie’s dreaming is the Araluta or kangaroo plant. This bush is a rich source of food for the kangaroos and keeps them fat and healthy and good for hunting.
The community of Ampilatwatja made a conscious decision not to paint altyerr (dreaming stories). The artists paint their country where those stories sit.
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.
Anhelengkw (emu) dreaming is the breast body painting depicting the story of the mother emu who runs away and leaves the father emu to look after the eggs until they hatch, he then raises the chicks.
This story is passed down through Maisie’s family and celebrated in dance.
I paint my Great Grandmothers country around Canteen Creek. Long time ago she hunted around this soakage in this country. When I paint, I paint that country, the soakage the bushflowers the sandhills and the distant mountains.
I hunt this country now.
This is my Mothers Mothers country, out near Canteen Creek, we go hunting for wild onions, goannas, echidnas and sugar bag honey in the trees. I like to hunt in my country, there is water all year round even if it looks dry, we follow the bird tracks to know where to dig and then we find water.
This painting is after rain, many grasses are out, but the riverbed is still sandy.