ELIZABETH NYUMI NUNGURRAYI - UNTITLED

ELIZABETH NYUMI NUNGURRAYI
UNTITLED,  2001
120 x 40 cm
acrylic on linen
 
PROVENANCE
Warlayirti Artists, WA Cat No. 672/01
Private collection, Singapore
 
STORY
Elizabeth Nyumi grew up near Jupiter Well, where she lived a nomadic life until she walked up the Canning Stock Route and into the old Balgo Mission in her late teens. In 1988, more than 40 years later she began painting at the Warlayirti Art Centre. Her subject is her father's country, Parwalla, far to the south of Balgo Hills in the Great Sandy Desert.
 
Parwalla is a large swampy area that fills with water after the wet season and consequently produces an abundance of bush foods. The majority of Nyumi's paintings show the different bush foods, including kantjilyi (bush raisin), pura (bush tomato), and minyili (seed). The whitish colours represent the spinifex that grows strong and seeds after the wet season rains. These seeds are white in colour and grow so thickly they obscure the ground and other plants below.
 
Elizabeth Nyumi was the foremost of the second-generation Balgo artists, on whose success the Warlayirti art centre at Balgo Hills has depended. More than any other artist, she extended the reputation of the Balgo women artists with her refreshingly distinct and individual depictions of the country.