Makurra is my favourite season. After the rains have passed, makurra (cold weather) has come full of blossoms. The seeds are now fully formed and have started to bloom brightening up the the country side with beautiful colours.
I paint the seed collecting because I take my children out to collect the seeds when they are ready, then we paint and make jewellery with them i also teach them the different seasons.
The roots of the lily pad can be roasted and eaten. They are found in billabongs and springs and have a beautiful flower.
After the rain the jilji been have no good flowers, they been come after. Yellow, purple and orange, they all there.
When we go back we see red and blue and yellow and purple flowers. All the kids we name for the desert flowers.
The high impact that came through. The prized new bridge built in the 1970s, but all washed away in this major flood.
Sonia was born by a billabong at Noonkanbah community. Her parents were Walmajarri whose movements led them to live by the Fitzroy River. Sonia has lived most her life at Noonkanbah. A compulsive artist, Sonia for a long time was a teacher’s aid at the local school where she facilitated art making with the children. Illustrative of her attachment to the country where she grew up, an intimate life with the river, Sonia’s art is a saturation of river country motifs, be it parlka (barramundi), brim, tortoise, stingray, pandanus trees or the water itself. “Martuwarra is my river country; this painting is all about the Fitzroy River which flows down through Noonkanbah where I live. All kinds of fish live in the water, we catch big mob of fish here. I like Parlka (barramundi). We catch catfish and brim here too. Nganku (shark), Wirritunany (sawfish) and Stingray also live here. These fish live in these waters long after the flood has gone. Also this painting is about barramundi swimming on the surface of the water, you can also see the Wakiri (pandanus tree) and rocks all around. When the barramundi get tired they go back into the rock holes. These rock holes hold all the Parlka (barramundi) that live in the river. Kalpurtu (creator serpent-type being) also live in these rock holes and swim all around the Palma (creeks) and all around the Wakiri that grows in the river.”
Wet season with the place for Iniyakka. When we have rain come through, all those bush flowers come up. Iniyakka some in one line, three of those jila (waterholes)
Turtle escaped from the river.
Its trying to find its way back to the salt water.
Theres the sea there and green grass. Those footprints are the turtle trying to make its way back. Yellow is the snake trying to get to the turtle.
This is about Gogo station on the old road. When I was young we were living there. We used to collect the coloured rocks from the hills, all different colours. Our mothers too and parents collected stones. We would gift it to our teachers and people as a gift from our country.
This painting is about the tali (Sandhills) and the bush flowers that come out after the hot weather rain. It is my grandfather’s country.