Louise Numina Napananka / Bush Medicine Leaves (LON381)

Louise Numina Napanangka was born in 1976 and is an Anmatyerre artist from the Stirling Station and Ti Tree region of Central Australia. She is the daughter of senior artist and cultural elder Barbara Price Mbitjana and the late Douglas Pananka Petyarre.

Louise is one of the well-known Numina Sisters, together with Jacinta, Lanita, Selina, Caroline and Sharon Numina, all established artists in their own right. The sisters come from an important family of Central Australian artists. Their paternal aunties include renowned Utopia painters Gloria Petyarre and Kathleen Petyarre, who played an important role in teaching Louise and her sisters to paint and in passing on the cultural stories and designs associated with their family and Country.

Louise grew up at Stirling Station, south of Tennant Creek, where she attended primary school before continuing her education at Yirara College in Alice Springs. After completing school she returned to Stirling Station and worked with the Community Development Program. Louise later moved to Darwin, where she studied at Nungalinya College and went on to complete a Diploma of Fine Arts through Northern Territory University.

Louise’s best-known paintings are her Bush Medicine Leaves, characterised by layers of fluid, rhythmic brushstrokes that create a strong sense of movement across the canvas. The story relates to the gathering and preparation of bush medicine plants by women and to the knowledge surrounding their traditional uses. Louise’s interpretation of the leaves has developed into a distinctive contemporary style, ranging from subtle, closely related tones to striking combinations of vivid colour.

Her broader body of work draws upon cultural knowledge and stories connected to women’s lives and Country, including Bush Tucker, Women’s Ceremony and Awelye body designs, Water Soakage, Spinifex, bush yams and Mountain Devil or Thorny Devil Lizard stories. These subjects reflect knowledge passed between generations through family, ceremony and time spent on Country.

For Louise and the Numina Sisters, painting is also an important way of maintaining these connections. Knowledge of plants, water, food gathering, ceremony and ancestral stories is learned from older family members and carried forward by younger generations. Through their paintings, the sisters continue a strong artistic tradition that has emerged from the Utopia and wider Central Desert region.

Louise has exhibited in Darwin, Sydney and Brisbane and her paintings are held by collectors throughout Australia and internationally. She has also taken her designs beyond the traditional gallery setting through collaborations with Brisbane fashion designer Pia du Pradal, bringing her distinctive imagery into contemporary fashion and design.

Louise is based in Darwin and maintains strong connections with her family and Country in Central Australia, returning to the Stirling Station and Ti Tree region to visit relatives and spend time on Country.

Bush Medicine Leaves is one of Louise Numina Napanangka’s most recognised and frequently painted subjects, reflecting important cultural knowledge passed through generations of women in her family and across the Utopia region of Central Australia.

For generations, Anmatyerre and Alyawarr women have gathered native plants for their medicinal properties. Knowledge of where these plants grow, when they should be collected and how they are prepared has traditionally been passed from older women to younger generations. Bush medicines may be made from leaves, roots, seeds and other parts of plants and are used in a variety of traditional healing practices.

In her paintings, Louise represents the leaves of the bush medicine plants through repeated, flowing brushstrokes. The individual leaves sweep and curl across the canvas, creating a strong sense of movement, as though they are being stirred and carried by the wind. Depending on the painting, Louise works with earthy desert tones, subtle layers of closely related colour or vibrant contrasting palettes, continually reinterpreting the story while retaining its connection to Country and traditional knowledge.

Bush Medicine Leaves is a particularly important artistic tradition within Louise’s family. Her aunt, the late Gloria Petyarre, became renowned for her interpretations of the subject, developing the rhythmic, flowing leaf imagery that became one of the most recognisable styles associated with Utopia art. Louise continues this strong family tradition in her own distinctive way, creating paintings that celebrate the medicinal plants of Country and the knowledge carried by generations of women.