Juliette Nakamarra Morris / Bush Tomato Dreaming (597-23)

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

Juliette Nakamarra Morris was born in 1981 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community located 290km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She is the daughter of Netta Williams and Wally Morris, both deceased. She was brought up in Yuendumu, attending the local school before going to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic College in Alice Springs. When she finished school, she returned to Yuendumu before going to Willowra to care for her grandmother. It was in Willowra that she met her husband and they now have four children.

Juliette began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, in 2006. She paints her mother’s Wanakiji Jukurrpa (Bush Tomato Dreaming), ‘Dreamings” that relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories were passed down to her by her mother and her mother’s father, and his father before him for millennia. “It’s all about my mother and grandpa’s country”. She can also paint her father’s Ngarlkirdi Jukurrpa (Witchetty Grub Dreaming).

When she is not painting, she is a full-time Mum, caring for her children.

The Wanakiji Jukurrpa (bush tomato Dreaming) travels through Yaturlu (near Mount Theo, north of Yuendumu). “Wanakiji” grows in open spinifex country and is a small, prickly plant with purple flowers that bears green fleshy fruit with many small black seeds. After collecting the fruit the seeds are removed with a small wooden spoon called ‘kajalarra’. The fruit then can be eaten raw or threaded onto skewers called ‘turlturrpa’ and then cooked over a fire. ‘Wanakiji’ can also be skewered and left to dry. When they are prepared in this way it is called ‘turlturrpa’ and the fruit can be kept for a long time.