Laketta Nampijinpa Turner / Flying Ant Dreaming (203-20ny)

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

Laketta Nampijinpa Turner was born in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She is the daughter of Alistair Jangala Turner and Judith Nungarrayi Martin and granddaughter of Helen Nampijinpa Robertson, all well-known artists who paint for Warlukurlangu Artists.

Laketta has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu since 2014. Since an early age her parents have encouraged her to paint and by the age of 10 years she was producing her own artwork. She paints her Dad’s Pamapardu Jukurrpa (Flying Ant Dreaming) and her Mum’s Ngatijirri Jukurrpa (Budgerigar Dreaming) and Janganpa Jukurrpa (Brush-tail Possum Dreaming). These stories relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it, and have been passed down to her by her parents and their ancestors before them for millennia.

When Laketta is not painting, she attends Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs. She enjoys school and likes playing Basketball. When she’s home in Nyirripi she likes to go hunting, in particular hunting for Bush Banana, with her parents and her three brothers.

This painting depicts the Flying Ant Dreaming from Wapurtali, west of Yuendumu. ‘Pamapardu’ is the Warlpiri name for the flying ants or termites that build the large anthills found throughout Warlpiri country. This country belongs to Nakamarra/Napurrurla women and Jakamarra/Jupurrurla men. ‘Pamapardu’ are flying ants. They build earth mounds (‘mingkirri’) that are common in the Tanami area. When heavy rains come in summer the ‘mingkirri’ get flooded out, so the ‘pamapardu’ grow wings and fly off to make new homes, following their queens to dry mounds or to build anew. When they have found their new home they drop their wings. In this stage they can be collected, lightly cooked in coals and eaten. As they fall to the ground women collect them to eat because they are nice and sweet. In this painting Maria has depicted the flowers and landscape found around the areas where the flying ants are found.