Elaine Nangala Brown / Seed Dreaming (2A)

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

Elaine Nangala Brown was born in 1984 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Willowra, a remote Aboriginal community located 220 km north-west of Alice Springs and 200 km east of Yuendumu. Elaine attended the local school in Willowra before going to Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs. Elaine completed Year 12 before returning to Willowra where she worked for PAW Media and Communications, an Aboriginal media organisation in Central Australia. She is married and has two children.

She has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 2013. Yuendumu is 200 km from Willowra. Elaine visits Yuendumu quite often, to see her family and friends and when she does she paints at the Art Centre. She paints her grandmother’s and mother’s Ngarlkirdi Jukurrpa (Witchety Grub Dreaming). Stories 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 mother and her mother before her for millennia. She uses traditional iconography, while developing a contemporary style to depict her traditional Jukurrpa.

When she’s not painting, she likes to go hunting for bush tucker with her family.

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.