Ningura Napurrula: untitled 2012

This painting depicts designs associated with Wirrulnga, a rockhole site in a small rocky outcrop east of the Kirwirrkura Community in Western Australia.

In ancestral times a group of woman of the Napaltjarri and Napurrula kinship subsections camped at this site, after travelling from the rockhole site of Ngaminya further west.

While at Wirrulnga the women also made spun hair-string with which 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 form a type of damper.

The various shapes in the painting represent the tali (sandhills) and puli (rocky outcrops) of Wirrulnga as well as the kampurarrpa gathered by the women.