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EILEEN NAPALTJARRI (born 1956)  
Acrylic on Belgian linen
122 x 122 cm

This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole and soakage water site of Tjiturrulpa, situated in rocky hills west of the Kintore Community. During ancestral times a group of men and women travelled east from this site toward the rockhole site of Illpilli. Along the way they gathered material to make various tools used in everyday life. The lines in the painting depict the lengths of wood that are yet to be fashioned into a variety of tools including kulata (spears), wana (nulla nullas), kiritji (shield) and kali (boomerang). While at Tjiturrulpa the group also gathered various bush foods, including pitjara (desert yam), the edible tuber of the shrub Ipomoea costata, pura (bush tomato) from the shrub Solanum Chippendalei, and kampurarrpa (desert raisin) from the small shrub Solanum Centrale.

PROVENANCE
Papunya Tula Artists Pty. Ltd., Alice Springs, painted at Kintore 2006,
Certificate number EN0608155

Eileen was born in Haasts Bluff in December 1956. Her father Charlie Tararu Tjungurrayi was one of the founding members of Papunya Tula Artists, and her mother Tatali Nangala was also a very successful artist with the company from 1996 until her death in 1999. Eileen grew up in Haasts Bluff and later moved to Kintore with her family when it was first established. The main site Eileen refers to in her painting is Tjiturrulnga, which is slightly west of Kintore and the birthplace of her father. She often sat beside both of her parents as they worked, and although doing her first painting in 1996, Eileen did not start painting regularly until 1999.

REPRESENTED
National Gallery of Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Artbank