Ngayuku Walka / My Design
Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.
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Ngayuku Walka / My Design
Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.
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Ngayuku Walka / My Design
Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.
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Kulata Tjuta – Kungkarangkalpa Freddy’s Story
Kungkarangkalpa means the Seven Sisters. This is an extensive creation story that relates to the Pleiades constellation in the southern hemisphere. The story traverses Australia taking on different forms, however Freddy’s part of the story is from his father’s country west of Atila (Mt Connor). For this part of the story a man called Nyiru is chasing the sisters as he wants to sleep with the oldest sister. All the younger sisters are deeply afraid of him.
Nyiru makes kulata tjuta (many spears) and leaves them leaning up against a tree. When the sisters are travelling they find the spears resting there and realise that the wati kura (bad man) is nearby. They get frightened and run away. Eventually, to escape Nyiru, the sisters fly into the sky where they turn into stars and form the constellation.
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Kulata and Kali (Spear & Boomerang)
My father told me this story, it’s a dream he had. There was a man who was travelling for a long time. He was travelling with kulata (spear) and kali (boomerang) because someone was waiting there for fighting.
In the middle of the way someone came making problems and trouble. All the kulata gone, all the kali gone. That place is still there and the kangaroo and emu are still drinking there at that waterhole.
This is tjukurpa wiru – a good story. There are some stories I can’t tell you.
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Ngayuku Walka / My Design
Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.
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Ngayuku Walka / My Design
Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.
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Kampurarpa Tjukurpa – Elizabeth’s Story
Kampurarpa are bush tomatoes. Elizabeth’s work comments on the environmental change that has occurred on her country due to the introduction of non-native fauna such as cattle, and flora, notably weeds like buffel grass. Buffel grass is so widespread and destructive that it is commonly known in and around Pukatja as tjanpi mamu or devil grass.
From the very start of Elizabeth’s artistic practice she has drawn her kampurarpa tjukurpa (bush tomato story) in clay. In the old times kampurarpa were one of the main foods for Anangu.
I’ve seen the land change. We used to have a lot of flowers. We used to go out to the bush to collect bush tucker, like kampurarpa (bush tomatoes). And now there’s a lot of buffel grass everywhere. The land is changed by the buffel grass. Now there’s no more flowers – no purple flowers, yellow flowers, white or pink flowers. I’ve seen it. When all the cattle and the sheep and the goats came, the kangaroos left and went a long way away. They saw the strange animals and they left. That’s a true story.
Today, sometimes we still go out and collect kampurarpa but not like we did before. Our country has been changed by cattle and weeds like buffel grass, so we can’t find all the old foods like we once did. I’ll keep telling the kampurarpa story in my work, that keeps the stories, songs and dances about these important foods alive and strong.
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Ngayuku Walka / My Design
Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.
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Ngayuku Walka / My Design
Walka means design or pattern. Artists use this title to describe artworks that are pattern based rather than descriptive or telling a story.