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NINGURA NAPURRULA (born circa 1938)
Acrylic on Belgian linen
153 x 122 cm

The roundels in this painting depict Wirrulnga, a rockhole site in a small rocky outcrop east
of the Kiwirrkura Community in Western Australia. In mythological times a group of
ancestral women of the Napaltjarri and Napurulla kinship sub-sections camped at this site
after travelling from the rockhole site of Ngamimya further west. Wirrulnga is a site which is
associated with birth. The lines adjacent to the central roundels in the painting symbolise the
extended shape of a pregnant woman of the Napaltjarri kinship sub-section who gave birth at
this site. While at Wirrulnga the women also spun hair-string to make nyimparra (hair-string
skirts), which are worn during ceremonies. From Wirrulnga the women continued their travels north-east to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay). As they travelled they gathered large quantities of the bush food known as kampurarrpa or desert raisin from the plant solanum centrale. These berries can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked in the coals to form a type of damper.

PROVENANCE
Papunya Tula Artists Pty. Ltd., Alice Springs, painted at Alice Springs 2006,
Certificate number NN0603259

Ningura Napurrula was born at Watulka, south of the Kiwirrkura Community. She married
Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi and together with their young son Morris they went to the
Papunya Tula Community after meeting up with Jeremy Long during one of his welfare patrols. In 1999 Ningura contributed to the Kintore women’s painting as part of the Western Desert Dialysis Appeal. In 2004 she was one of eight Aboriginal artists selected to have an example of their work incorporated into the architecture of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris.

REPRESENTED
National Gallery of Australia
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory