Clarise Nampijinpa Poulson / Flying Ant Dreaming – Warntungurru (3040-23)

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

Clarise Nampijinpa Poulson was born in 1957 in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. A Warlpiri speaker, Clarise lives and work in Yuendumu . Her country is Wantungurru, and she paints her father’s Jukurrpa, Dreamings which include Yankirri (Emu Dreaming), Ngapa (Water Dreaming) and Pamapardu (Flying Ant Dreaming). These stories were handed down to her by her father and his father’s father for millennia.

Clarise Nampijinpa first painted for Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre in Yuendumu, in 1988, and her first solo work was shown in the ANCAA exhibition in Darwin in September 1988. She quickly distinguished herself as an outstanding artist, daring in her use of intense colour and detailed, hard-edged designs with optical gyrations.

Clarice is a meticulous painter, able to vary size of dots and design elements so that each composition is individualistic. Clarise has participated in many important surveys of Aboriginal art, notable Mythscapes: Aboriginal Art of the Desert, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1989, Balance 1990, Views Visions and Influences, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1990, L’ete Australien Montpellier, Musee favre, France 1990 and the Aboriginal Women’s Exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1991. In 1992, she had her first solo exhibition at Hogarth Gallery in Sydney. In 1993, Clarise was awarded a Creative Arts Fellowship.

She is a widow but when married she sometimes painted with her husband, Michael Japangardi Poulson (Dec). Her brother in law Neville “Cobra” Japangardi Poulson is also a painter at Warlukurlangu Artists. Clarise is a very strong Baptist. Yuendumu community where she lives was originally a Baptist Mission. Clarisse has painted the stations of the cross for the local church in traditional iconography.

This painting depicts the Pamapardu Jukurrpa (Flying Ant Dreaming) from Warntungurru, west of Yuendumu. ‘Pamapardu’ is the Warlpiri name for the flying ants or termites that build the large anthills found throughout Warlpiri country. This country belongs to Nakamarra/Napurrurla women and Jakamarra/Jupurrurla men. ‘Pamapardu’ are flying ants. They build earth mounds (‘mingkirri’) that are common in the Tanami area. When heavy rains come in summer the ‘mingkirri’ get flooded out, so the ‘pamapardu’ grow wings and fly off to make new homes, following their queens to dry mounds or to build a new. When they have found their new home they drop their wings. In this stage they can be collected, lightly cooked in coals and eaten. As they fall to the ground women collect them to eat because they are nice and sweet.

In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, particular sites and other elements. When this Jukurrpa story is painted concentric circles are used to represent the ‘mingkirri’ and the rockholes involved in the story, including the central one at Wapurtali (Mt Singleton). Dashes are often depicted around the circles to represent the ‘pamapardu’.