Eva Nanagala Ross / Water Dreaming

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

Artwork Description

The site depicted in this painting is Puyurru, west of Yuendumu. In the normally dry creek beds are water soakages or natural wells. Two Jangala men, rainmakers, sang the rain, causing there to be a giant storm. It moved across the country, with the lightning striking the land. This storm joined with another storm from Wapurtali, to the west, was gathered up by a ‘kirrkarlan’ (brown falcon [Falco berigora]) and carried further west until it dropped the storm at Purlungyanu, where it created a giant soakage. At Puyurru the falcon dug up a giant snake, ‘warnayarra’ (the ‘rainbow serpent’) and the snake carried water to create a large lake, Jillyiumpa, close to an outstation in this country. This story belongs to Jangala men and Nangala women. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings time honored iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, allied sites and other elements.

Jukurrpa is a Central Australian Aboriginal term used to mean the laws and protocols set by the ancestral beings who created the world. People sometimes use the word dreaming in place of Jukurrpa.

In many paintings of this Jukurrpa curved and straight lines represent the ‘ngawarra’ (flood waters) running through the landscape. Motifs frequently used to depict this story include small circles representing ‘mulju’ (water soakages) and short bars depicting ‘mangkurdu’ (cumulus & stratocumulus clouds).