Acrylic on canvas
120 x 80 cm
Nancy has painted some of her father ’s country named Yandiwarra found
far to the south of Balgo in the Great Sandy Desert. The central circle represents
a large wanirri (rockhole) found in this country and the parallel lines are
tali or sand dunes.
PROVENANCE
Warlayirti Artists, Balgo Hills, Western Australia, painted 2003,
Catalogue number 595/03
Nancy is a Kukatja woman whose country lies to the south and east of Balgo,
between Nyirripi, Kintore and Lappi Lappi. Nancy grew up on these lands and
in her early twenties a white man brought her family to Mount Doreen Station
near Yuendumu and they settled there for a while. Nancy worked sorting rocks
at the mine that is now closed down. Nancy ’s father and younger sister
went travelling from there and got into some intertribal conflict. Three people
died shortly after, including her father, and it is said that he was ‘sung’.
Nancy married a Walpiri man from the Tanami area and lived in Yuendumu, then
at the Granites where he worked in the mine while Nancy brought up their first
two children, a daughter and a son. The family gradually moved northwest from
the Tanami to Gordon Downs where they had another son. Nancy has outlived her
husband and is settled at Balgo with other Warlpiri people.
Together with her
sisters, Nancy is an important Law Woman with responsibility to maintain the
song cycles of her country. An influential person, she was involved in the
production of traditional artifacts in the 1970s and early 1980s and became
a key figure in the early Balgo women’s painting movement. Nancy ’s
works have been exhibited widely in Australia and overseas.
REPRESENTED
National Gallery of Victoria
Araluen Collection, Alice Springs
The Holmes à Court Collection
Kluge Ruhe Collection, USA
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