Florence Nungarrayi Tex / Lappi Lappi Dreaming (1A)

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

Florence Nungarrayi Tex was born in Alice Springs Hospital in the Northern Territory of Australia, in 1993, far from her home in Nyirripi, a remote aboriginal community approx. 410 km north-west of Alice Springs. She attended the local school in Nyirripi before being sent to Worawa Aboriginal College, a private boarding school in Healesville, Victoria, Australia. She completed her schooling at Kormalda College in Darwin, NT. When she left school, she moved to Yuendumu, a remote aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs, where she has lived since. Florence works for the Central Land Council as a Warlpiri Ranger. The Working on Country program is a most popular and successful initiative in Aboriginal employment and now more than 80 Aboriginal people are employed by the CLC as rangers on their country.

Florence enjoyed painting at school, and began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, in 2018. She paints her Grandfather’s Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa (Lappi Lappi Dreaming), dreamings which relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories have been passed down to her by her father and his father before him for millennia. She loves colour and uses an unrestricted palette to depict her traditional iconography.

When Florence is not painting, she enjoys playing basketball and spending time with her husband, Andrew Jakamarra Brumby, also an artist painting with Warlukurlangu Artists.

The subject of this work is Lappi Lappi, a rock hole near Lake Hazlett, about 90 km northwest of Lake Mackay in Western Australia. The country belongs to Nampijinpa and Jangala skin groups. Located in a sheltered basin, the rock hole at Lappi Lappi is a permanent source of water, and is surrounded by country rich in bush tucker.

In the time of the Jukurrpa (Dreamtime) many mothers with young children would gather there because it was a safe place to stay. The rock hole at Lappi Lappi is home to a ‘warnayarra’, a rainbow serpent that travels underground between various rock holes.