Louise Numina Napananka / Bush Yam (Anatye) Dreaming (LON222)

Louise was born in 1976 and is the daughter of Barbara Price Mbtitjana who is a senior painter and cultural elder from Stirling Station and Douglas Pananka Petyarre (deceased). Louise has five sisters, Jacinta, Lanita, Selina, Caroline and Sharon Numina, who are also well-respected artists from Utopia.

Louise, along with her sisters and brothers were sent to boarding school in Darwin as no secondary schooling was available in Tennant Creek, 500kms north of Alice Springs. Louise went on to complete a Diploma of Fine Arts from the Northern Territory University. After she completed her studies Louise moved back to Stirling Station and worked with the Community Development Program.

Louise’s family come from a long line of desert artists of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement including her world renowned aunties, the late Gloria and Kathleen Petyerre. Many women from the Petyerre, Mbtitjana and Numina family name hold custody and are knowledge keepers of stories such as Bush Medicine Leaves, Bush Tucker, Seeds, Soakage and Womens’ Ceremony, in common with other skin groups across the vast arid landscape and desert areas of central Australia.

Subjects of importance in the theme-series paintings are various bush tucker stories. Plant foods include wild berries, plums, onion, yam, seeds etc. Many animals can be depicted as a food source or as totems such as Thorny Devil Lizard and Dingo Tracks. Womens’ Ceremony, Awelye Body Art Ceremony are mostly painted by senior ladies but younger women need to know it from a young age. Some themes such as Bush Tucker can be open and universal and others can be secret and passed down through cultural ceremonies. Knowing, carrying and reinforcing these stories gives respect for Country and ancestors and shows responsibility and care of holding such stories to keep the stories and traditional practices alive. The knowledge must be retold repeatedly and handed on. The Numina Sisters have all been taught to paint by their elder painter grandmothers, mother-aunties and cousin-sisters connected across the Central Desert region.

Louise lives in Darwin with her husband and children. Her sisters also live in Darwin and they often travel back to Ti-Tree and Stirling Station in the north Utopia region near Tennant Creek.

In the Dreamtime, Ancestral Beings walked across the desert—sometimes alone, sometimes in groups—teaching law and ceremony to Aboriginal people living in isolated camps. As they journeyed, they created sacred sites such as hills and rocky outcrops, shaping what had once been a flat and featureless land.

They distributed trees, plants, and seeds to the people in these remote areas, ensuring their survival in the harsh desert environment.

When Ancestral Beings felt threatened or sensed their time in human form had ended, they transformed into other creatures or metamorphosed into rocks, hills, plants, or trees, where their spirits would live on forever.

To this day, ceremonies continue to be performed at these sacred sites to honour the spirits who reside there.

Yala, the Yam Ancestor, journeyed throughout the desert in human form, creating places where wild bush potatoes would flourish. One of the main centres was Yaltjiyaal, west of Alice Springs. When Yala grew weary, he lay down at this site and transformed into a yam, sending out roots from which new tubers spread in every direction. Ceremonies are still held here to ensure a plentiful harvest for future generations.

In this painting, Louise honours the spirit of the yam through intricate dot work symbolising its seeds and sweeping brushstrokes representing the underground root system of the Yam plant.