Charmaine Napangardi Granites / Seed Dreaming (2A)

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

Charmaine Napangardi Granites was born in 1984, in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She is Reva Nungarrayi Dickson’s daughter, and Judy Nampijinpa Granites’ granddaughter on her father’s side, both Warlukurlangu artists. Charmaine has many brothers and sisters. She attended the local school in Yuendumu and continued her education at Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs followed by Kormilda College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Darwin. When she finished school, she moved to Lajamanu where she met her husband. They have four daughters.

Although Charmaine visited Yuendumu often and would paint when she visited family, it wasn’t until 2014 when she returned to Yuendumu that she became a full-time artist with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu. “I use to paint when I was a little girl with my grandmother.” Charmaine paints her grandmother’s Mina Mina Jukurrpa (a women’s dreaming site). She began using traditional iconography but because of her love for pattern and colour she has developed an individualist style using pattern and design in a variety of contexts to depict her traditional jukurrpa, stories that were passed down to her by her parents and their parents before them for millennia.

When she’s not painting, she enjoys playing basketball and softball.

This painting tells the story of a Jangala ‘watiya-warnu’ ancestor who travelled south from a small hill called Ngurlupurranyangu to Yamunturrngu (Mount Liebig). As he travelled he picked the ‘watiya-warnu’ seeds and placed them in ‘parrajas’ (food carriers), one of which he carried on his head. Watiya-warnu is a seed bearing tree that grows in open spinifex or mulga country.

When people returned to their camp after collecting the seeds they would make large windbreaks for shelter and winnow the seed in the late afternoon. Immature ‘watiya-warnu’ seed is ground into a paste and can be used to treat upset stomachs. The associated ‘watiya-warnu’ ceremony involves the preparation of a large ground painting.