Ingrid Napangardi Williams / Bush Potato Dreaming – Cockatoo Creek (1222-25)

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

Ingrid Napangardi Williams was born in 1976 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She is the daughter of Pamela Napururrla Walker and Warren Japanangka Williams and has one sister, Bernadette Williams. She attended the local primary school then Yirara College, a boarding school in Alice Springs. When Ingrid finished school she returned home, where she worked at the school, helping with the little ones, then the Old People’s home and later the School of Nutrition. Ingrid is married to Steven Jakamarra Oldfield.

Ingrid began painting with the Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 1999. She paints her father’s Ngalyipi Jukurrpa (Snake Vine Dreaming) – Purturlu; her mother’s Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming) and sometimes her father’s Wardapi Jukurrpa (Goanna Dreaming) – Yarripurlangu. These ‘dreamings’ relate directly to her land, stories that have been passed down through the generations for millennia. She uses an unrestricted palette to develop a modern interpretation of her traditional culture.

When she is not painting she likes to go hunting for bush tucker with her family.

This dreaming comes from an area to the east of Yuendumu called Cockatoo Creek. ‘Yarla’ (bush potato) are fibrous tubers that grow beneath a low spreading plant, found by looking for cracks in the ground. This edible tuber grows from roots which seek out moisture to sprout new plants. Yarla are good to eat, when cooked they are really soft and tasty. This dreaming tells of ‘yarla’ and ‘wapirti’ (bush carrot) ancestors fighting a big battle in this area. The specific site associated with this painting is a ‘mulju’ (water soakage) called Ngarparapunyu.