Gregory Jupurrurla Gill / Desert Fringe-rush Seed Dreaming (5302-22)

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

Gregory Jupurrurla Gill was born in Derby, WA in 1970. He grew up in Balgo (Wirrimanu Aboriginal Community), located in the south-east Kimberley region of WA, on the boundary between the Great Sandy Desert and the Tanami Desert of central Australia. He is the son of Susie Bootja Bootja (Dec), one of the forceful and driving painters who came out of Balgo and Mick Jakamarra Gill (Dec), a senior founding member of the Western Desert Aboriginal Art movement. An Elder, who had a great knowledge of traditional designs and stories.

Gregory grew up in Balgo, attending the local school before finding work in a Stock Camp. Stock camps are the work engines of the Northern Cattle stations, where workers put in long hours mustering cattle, branding and fencing. In his travels, he met and married Lynette Nangala Singleton and now lives in Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal community south-east of Balgo in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Gregory began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, in 2021. He was motivated to paint after watching his wife Lynette Nangala Singleton painting her stories, and his need to tell and paint his father’s stories about country including: Kora, Nundalra, Ngunjun and Makubunda Jukurrpa (Gill’s Father’s Dreamings), Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) and his Yurrampi Jukurrpa (Honey Ant Dreaming). These stores have been passed down through the generations for millennia.

When Gregory is not painting, he enjoys hunting.

This Jukurrpa belongs to women of the Nakamarra / Napurrurla subsections and to Jakamarra / Jupurrurla men. This Dreaming is associated with a place called Jaralypari, north of Yuendumu. Lukarrara (desert fringe-rush) is a grass with an edible seed. The seeds are traditionally ground on a large stone (‘ngatinyanu’) with a smaller stone (‘ngalikirri’) to make flour. This flour is mixed with water (‘ngapa’) to make damper cakes which are cooked and eaten. In Warlpiri traditional paintings iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, particular sites and other elements. Large concentric circles often represent the site of Jaralypari and also the seed bearing grass Lukurrara. ‘U’ shapes can depict the Karnta (women) collecting ‘lukarrara’ and straight lines are frequently used to portray seeds that fall down to the ground and are also collected by women using their ‘parrajas’ (wooden food carriers) and ‘karlangu’ (digging sticks).