Artists of Ampilatwatja

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Nancy Pitjara Frank – Artna Alpeyt (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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Rita Pitjara Beasley – Anpatyirreyel Iwerr (Following a Track)

These are tracks I follow along my country when I go hunting for bush medicine

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Kindy Kemarre Ross – Irrultja is My Country

My country is called Irrultja, it’s past the hill and the dried-up creek from here, it’s a nice place, my dad’s country too, and my Mum’s country is here in Ampilatwatja. When I go to see my country, we always go to gather bush medicine, we always climb up the hill that’s in the south, we always go there.

We like to look out over the land and there are lots of flowers and bush medicine up there. I love my countryside; I see the nice flowers and gather bush medicine for me and my family. I like to paint a mix of wildflowers and bush medicines in all my paintings because it reminds me of my favourite part of my country and when it rains the flowers come out. Yeah, my countryside.

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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Colleen Ngwarraye Morton – Awangk Alheyel (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. 

 

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Rita Pitjara Beasley – Apwert Angketyarr (Hill 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.”

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Nancy Pitjara Frank – Artna Alpeyt (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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Kathleen Nanima Rambler – Mulangke Aherne (Beautiful Land)

My country. When I go hunting out bush, as we drive along the road towards the hill you can see the beautiful land and the flowers blooming on the side of the road, and near the hills, even the beautiful gum trees.

It makes me proud.

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Elizabeth Ngwarraye Bonney – Flowers and Fairies

This painting is of my Mother’s Country, where the enookecha (kunga berry) trees grow.

After the rain the enookecha come out, the rain makes the flowers and seeds fall to the ground and then the fairies come.
They are sweet, good fairies that live in the enookecha trees and they come after the rain. When we go out we can feel them there.

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Elizabeth Ngwarraye Bonney – Penh Artna Rwa (After Bushfire)

This is the soakage (place to dig to find water) after the bushfire, made by a lightning strike. It burnt the grass down, then the rain came and the grass grows sweet and new. The kangaroos come out for the new grass, so we can go hunting for kangaroos and goannas, it is easy hunting because the land is bare of bush and we can see them

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Elizabeth Ngwarraye Bonney – Tijamburra, My Homeland

My homeland is Tijamburra, Canteen Creek, I love that country, it is my Grandmother’s country and it is the only country that I paint. It is fresh country after the rain and it is always plentiful with bush tucker and bush medicine. There are many soakages (places to find water) and we have names for all of them. You can sit there in the shade of the big trees and I love to camp there, the little children in my family never want to leave and want to swim all day in the cool big swamps