Bridget Napangardi Williams / Snake Vine Dreaming (1A)

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

Bridget Napangardi Williams was born in 1960 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. She has two sisters, Gayle Napangardi Gibson and Deborah Napangardi Williams, also artists from Warlukurlangu Art Centre. Bridget is married to Walala Japaljarri and has one daughter Clarissa.

Bridget attended the local school in Yuendumu before attending Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding school located in Alice Springs. When she finished schooling she returned to Yuendumu. In the late 1980s Bridget moved to Nyirripi, an outstation a further 150 km north-west of Yuendumu. Bridget painted intermittently between 1989 and 2008, probably due to lack of canvas and paint, but since 2009 has been painting consistently with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation located in Yuendumu. Warlukurlangu recognised the need to service the community and since 2005 has visited Nyirripi, usually on a weekly basis to drop off canvas, brushes and paint and pick up completed artwork.

Bridget learnt to paint by watching her parents and her big sister, who have all passed away, paint. “I like painting my dreaming.” She paints her father’s Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings which relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories were passed down to her by her father and his father’s father before him for millennia.

Bridget likes living in Nyirripi, “it is a good place to live.” She likes going bush and hunting for goanna, emu, bush turkey and kangaroo.

The country associated with this Snakevine Dreaming is located at Yanjirlpiri (meaning ‘star’ in Warlpiri) (Mt. Nicker) to the west of Yuendumu. The owners of this Dreaming are Napaljarri / Nungarrayi women and Japaljarri / Jungarrayi men.

Snakevine is a green creeper that climbs up the trunks and branches of trees and shrubs. The plant is found on sandy spinifex plains and sandhills. Snakevine is frequently depicted in paintings due to its many uses and its great ceremonial importance. The vine can be used as a shoulder strap to carry coolamons and water carriers. The plant also has medicinal uses; its vines are used as tourniquets, and its leaves and vines are used as bandages for wounds. Warlpiri sometimes also chew the leaves to treat severe colds. Snakevine stems can be pounded between stones and tied around the forehead to cure headaches. In men’s initiation it is used to tie the ceremonial poles to the shins of the dancing initiates, and to dancing boards to dancers’ bodies. The initiation ceremonies associated with the Snakevine Dreaming at Yanjirlpiri are for the sons and grandsons of Japaljarri and Jungarrayi men. Napaljarri and Nungarrayi women dance at these ceremonies, and then look away and block their ears when the men dance. This ‘witi’ ceremony is performed at night under the stars.