Kelly Napanangka Michaels / Hair-string Belt Dreaming (1A)

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

Kelly Napanangka Michaels was born in 1965 and lives in Yuendumu, an Aboriginal settlement located 290 kms north west of Alice Springs. She attended the local school in Yuendumu.

She is married to Roy Jupurrurla Curtis, the local Indigenous Police Aid. They have four daughters. She is a grandmother and spends a lot of time caring for her grandchildren. As often as possible she travels to Nyirripi a settlement 160 kms west of Yuendumu where two of her daughters live.

She has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation since 1987, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu. She paints her Dreaming stories which are directly related to her traditional country, its land, features and animals such as Mina Mina Jukurrpa (Mina Mina Dreaming), Marrjadi Jukurrpa (Ceremonial and Hairstring Dreaming) Karnta Jukurrpa (Women’s Dreaming) andYarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming). Kelly loves painting particularly her Mina Mina and Dancing patterns and designs. These patterns and designs depicting her stories have been passed down through her family for millennia.

Kelly loves to spend time hunting for traditional bush foods in the countryside surrounding Yuendumu and Nyirripi. She also loves playing softball and basketball and is a keen competitor at the annual Yuendumu Sports weekend.

This painting is of the Majardi Jukurrpa (hair-string belt or tassel Dreaming). Majardi is a belt or tassel made of ‘purdurru’ (spun hair or fur) worn during traditional ceremonies. Human hair (and sometimes the fur from wallabies or possums) is rolled on the thigh and then spun using a ‘wirinkirri’ (stick spindle). The string is then incorporated into a skirt or pubic tassel that is worn by men or women while dancing during ceremonies. In the time of the Jukurrpa, ancestral hero women of the Napangardi and Napanangka kinship subsections were living at Mina-Mina, a site of great religious significance far to the west of Yuendumu. The women travelled over their country performing ceremonies and dances wearing their ‘majardi’. This Dreaming belongs to the women of the Napangardi/Napanangka subsections and to their classificatory brothers, the Japangardi/Japanangka men.