Alfreda Nungarrayi Martin / Ngarlu Jukurrpa (Love Dreaming) (6045-23)

Artwork is accompanied by Warlukurlangu Artists (Yuendumu) Art Centre Certificate of Authenticity/Provenance

Alfreda Nungarrayi Martin was born in 1978 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in NT of Australia.

Alfreda comes from a well-established family of artists — her mother is Helen Nampijinpa Robertson, her grandfather is Shorty Jangala Robertson, and Alfreda’s step-father is Paddy Japaljarri Stewart, all well-known artists both in Australia and overseas.

Alfreda attended the local school in Yuendumu and completed her studies (Year 12) through the Northern Territory Secondary Correspondence School (now the NT Open Education Centre). As part of her studies she attended Residential School in Darwin where students attended a week of timetabled lessons with teachers for all their subjects. When she completed her studies she looked for work. One of her jobs was preparing lunch for pupils at the local school in Yuendumu.

In 2008 Alfreda began painting for Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre in Yuendumu, where her grandfather, Shorty Jangala and her step-father, Paddy Japaljarri were both senior artists. Alfreda likes to paint her father’s dreaming, Yurrampi Jukurrpa (Honey Ant Dreaming) and her grandfather’s dreaming – Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming). These dreamings relate directly to the land and its features, and the plants and animals that live on it.

Alfreda has never married, nor has she had children of her own, however she has many nieces and nephews to play with. In 2015 Alfreda moved to Nyirripi where she continues to live.

The story of the Ngarlu Jukurrpa (Ngarlu Dreaming) is about a Jungarrayi man called Lintipilinti who lived at Ngarlu, which means ‘red rock’, a country to the east of Yuendumu. Lintipilinti fell in love with a Napangardi woman, a forbidden relationship under Warlpiri law, as the woman was his classificatory mother-in-law. He began to wonder how he could woo the Napangardi. He went to Ngarlu and made hair string for her, singing as he worked. The Napangardi woman could not sleep and began to feel sick. She realized that someone was singing ‘yilpinji’ (love songs) for her. A little bird visited the Napangardi woman every day. The little bird was taking the Jungarrayi’s love songs to her. The force of the Jungarrayi’s love songs pulled the Napangardi woman to Lintipilinti. When the two met again they made love but they were turned to stone, as their relationship was taboo according to Warlpiri religious law. The two can still be seen, as two rocks, at Ngarlu today. During the course of these events the women from Ngarlu who gossiped about the wrong skin love union turned into ‘miinypa’ (native fuchsia). These are plants with small red flowers that have honey inside them that are delicious to eat, tasting like ice-cream. Ngarlu is a sacred place where ‘miinypa’ or ‘yanyirlingi’ are still commonly found today.