June Bird Ngale / Alpar Seed Dreaming (JB03)

June Bird Ngale was born c. 1955. She is the daughter of famed artist Ada Bird Petyarre (dec) and Tommy Bird Mpetyane (dec). She lives with her husband and children in the Utopia Region in Central Australia.

Along with her mother and famous relatives, June started to paint on batik in the 1980’s and her work was featured in the prestigious Robert Holmes à Court Collection.

Using very delicate dots, June is best known for depicting the seeds of the Alpar plant, a significant part of the dreamings and ceremonies owned by the people from the Utopia region.

Alpar is the Anmatyerre word for the Rat-Tail Goosefoot plant (Dysphania kalpari). It is also known as the Green Crumbweed plant. This is a small herb that is sticky to touch and is citrus scented. It produces small clustered flowers that form long spikes, resembling that of a rat tail, as well as small shiny seeds.

In this artwork, June has used different coloured dots to represent the Alpar seeds in their various stages of development, as they grow from their green stage to maturity.

The seeds of the Alpar are an important food as they are high in protein and low in fibre and one of the many bush seeds used to make damper, especially in the days before processed flour became available. Some people in the Utopia region still also use the plant for bush medicine. Both the leaves and seeds of the Alpar have medicinal properties.