This painting is about our four skin groups Banaga, Balyirri, Burungu and Garimarra. Without understanding skin groups it would be hard for other groups in the Pilbara region to know who you are and where you are from so it is very important for us Yinjibarndi people to learn their own skin colour.
This is the Fortescue Mulla Mulla or ‘Gumbarli’ in Yindjibarndi language. The flower is a purplish colour. It’s not a bush medicine, just a flower that grows in the country, in lines along the roads and everywhere. In this painting, the seeds of the Mulla Mulla are all blowing out. Once the leaves and petals have fallen off, the seeds are blown all through the land to bring flowers again the next year.
In our country we have many hills of all different shapes and sizes. When driving through country at different times the colours change and some of the hills look like velvet in the evening and morning light.
My painting is about my journey with cancer. Like a river flowing, sometimes it’s still, sometimes its dirty as it snakes around the bends in nature. The shape and the pattern is the water turning, bending curving like my healing journey. Circles represent healing. The patterning represents the streams curving around. This is my journey through my cancer. It is emotional. The colours I use are from the fish and all the animals. I use the pattern of the animals for inspiration.
In September, when we are looking for gum from the Blue Gum Tree, we walk through the spinifex country. We pick the gum when it is crystal colour, and we eat it, or put it into hot water to make it like a toffee. We call it sugar lolly.
*This artwork is framed behind glass.
*framed behind glass.
When we see sea turtles it can mean that they can be mating and that makes us aware that they will soon be going to lay eggs. Some of our people eat the eggs and turtles.
