Shire of East Pilbara (Martumili Artists)

Walking Country Walking towards Well 40 (on the Canning Stock Route). That’s my great great grand pop’s Country. 

Well 35, My Country This work portrays an area known intimately to the artist, painted here in exquisite detail from memory. During the pujiman (traditional, desert dwelling) era one’s survival depended on their intimate knowledge of the location of resources; thus physical elements of Country, such as sources of kapi Read more…

Punkulyi and Yulpu [Points to central oblong form] “That’s an old man with ngankurr (beard) and his brother living there at Punkulyi. They dreaming in Parnngurr area. They yapu (hill, rock) now. They been digging for water. They dug all the parna (dirt) out of the ground, digging and searching for water. They got tired and Read more…

Untitled This is Wurta Amy French’s Country- her ‘ngurra’ (home Country, camp). People identify with their ngurra in terms of specific rights and responsibilities, and the possession of intimate knowledge of the physical and cultural properties of one’s Country. Painting ngurra, and in so doing sharing the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) stories Read more…

Untitled “When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see Read more…

Untitled “When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see Read more…

Ngurra Yalta Yalta is a waterhole located between the Great Sandy Desert’s Percival Lakes region and Kunawarritji Aboriginal community. This site was visited by the Ngayurnangalku (cannibals) during the Jukurrpa (Dreaming). These fearsome ancestral cannibal beings said to resemble people in their appearance, except for their fangs and long curved Read more…

Pitu (Separation Well) “Pitu, soak, big one. Water there all the time. Pitu, the place for our whole family. [As a young girl] I walked around and went east back to my dad’s area, to Pitu and Kulilu, Nakaly and Kunapila. Then I was a teenager. My Country is Pitu Read more…

Untitled “When Martu paint, it’s like a map. Martu draw story on the ground and on the canvas, and all the circle and line there are the hunting areas and different waters and tracks where people used to walk, and [some you] can’t cross, like boundaries. So nowadays you see Read more…

Untitled This painting portrays physical elements of Martu Country, such as the dominant tali (sandhills), warta (trees, vegetation), and water sources. Rock holes, waterholes, soaks and springs were all extremely important sites for Martu people during the pujiman (nomadic bush) era, with many important jukurrpa (dreamtime stories) chronicling the creation Read more…