Kathleen Petyarre / My Country – Bush Seeds (1B)

My Country – Bush Seeds represents an aerial view composition of Kathleen’s scared dreaming site of Mountain Devil Lizard in the vicinity of Mosquito Bore on Utopia Station in the Eastern Desert of Central Australia. It is here on the site of the Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming that the men and women of the Eastern Anmatyerre language conduct important secret and sacred initiation ceremonies. This Dreaming site is situated in the artist’s father’s country and the general locality is identified by a group of sand hills that rise majestically from the desert floor represented in the painting by the prominent parallel lines. The painting portrays the area scattered with seeds, summer bush flowers and Spinifex grasses. The sand hills represent a sacred Women’s Dreaming site associated with the green pea (antweth). The seeds (ntang) depicted throughout the painting are of the green pea that are an important food source for the “traditional healer” (ngangkar) and the Mountain Devil Lizard (Arnkerrth).