Ivy Napangardi Poulson / Vaughan Springs Dreaming

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

Ivy Napangardi Poulson was born in 1959 and has lived her whole life in Yuendumu, an Aboriginal settlement located 290km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. When she was young her parents would take her out bush, around Nyirripi and Yuendumu, showing her sites and teaching her the traditional ways of her country. She was married for many years to Darby Jampijinpa Ross, one of the founding artists of Warlurkurlangu Artists Art Corporration.

Ivy has been painting with the art centre since 1989, as well as helping Darby with his work. She has one son who lives in Darwin. She occasionally works at the art centre helping to mix paint and stretch canvas. Ivy paints Jukurrpa, creation stories that were passed down to her by her mother and father and their parents before them for millennia. These stories relate closely to Ivy’s traditional country, its features and animals.

Pikilyi is a large and important waterhole and natural spring near Mount Doreen station. Pikilyi Jukurrpa (Vaughan Springs Dreaming) tells of the home of two rainbow serpents, ancestral heroes who lived together as man and wife. The woman ‘rainbow serpent’ was of the Napanangka skin group, the man was a Japangardi. This was a taboo relationship contrary to Warlpiri religious law. Women of the Napanangka and Napangardi subsection sat by the two serpents, picking lice off them. For this service, the two serpents allowed the women to take water from the springs at Pikilyi. This was because the serpents were the ‘kirda’, or ceremonial owners, for that country. The spirits of these two rainbow serpents are still at Pikilyi today.