Caroline Numina Napananka / Medicine Leaves (6B)

Caroline is a young artist who has already made an incredible impression on the Contemporary Art Market.

Born in 1975 at Stirling Station which is Anmatyerre country near Alice Springs and Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory of Australia and educated in Alice Springs, Caroline began painting in 1981, under the direction of two of our most famous Australian Artists, her aunties Kathleen and Gloria Petyarre.

One of six girls, they were taught the traditional stories by their relatives, and with her sisters Lanita and Louise, Caroline relocated to Darwin in 1995 where she remains today with her husband Daniel Pula Turner and their four children, living close to her sisters Lanita, Jacinta, Louise and Sharon, all artists in their own right.

She paints the stories of her heritage, including bush tucker and bush medicine dreaming, mountain devil lizard dreaming, honey ant, emu and kangaroo dreaming in exquisite detail and striking colours.

The Western desert has an extreme dry climate. The summer is hot with temperatures often exceeding forty degrees Celsius. In winter the nights are freezing cold from June to August. During the droughts, vegetation is sparse and only spinifex and mulga shrubs subsist though they appear withered and lifeless.

After the infrequent rain the desert landscape is transformed. The dried out spinifex flower resembles a field of wheat and the mulga shrub bears green dense foliage and masses of bright yellow flowers. Growing amongst these plants is an abundance of wildflowers that turns the deep red coloured desert floor into a utopian garden.

The Bush Medicine Plant is an Australian native that grows wild in Central Australia. Women collect leaves from these plants, which are boiled to extract resin. Kangaroo fat is mixed into the resin, creating a paste that can be stored for a long time in bush conditions. This medicine is used to heal cuts, wounds, bites and rashes. It is also used to treat the flu, headache, backache, upset stomach, chest pains or as an insect repellent. As the leaves and petals dry out they fall off and are blown around by the wind. This is represented in the painting and gives it the movement.