Mary Napangardi Butcher / Vaughan Springs Dreaming (2053-26)

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

Mary Napangardi Butcher was born at Mount Dennison, but has spent most of her life in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community located 290km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She attended the local school but did not continue her studies until 2011 when she enrolled in an English and Literacy Course with Batchelor College. She is very committed to her studies and travels, at least twice a year, to Darwin to attend courses.

Mary is a single parent and has two sons, Herbert and Johnathan Martin. Mary has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists since 1987. She was greatly influenced by her father Jack Japanangka Butcher (Dec) and his sister Daisy Napanangka Nelson (1930 – 2001), both artists who painted with Warlukurlangu Artists in the early 80s and 90s.

Mary would often paint with her sister Florrie Napangardi Jones and with Daisy on the same piece of artwork. Mary paints her Pikilyi Jukurrpa stories-Pikilyi is a sacred water hole that never dries out. These Dreamings depict country, and describe journeys across the land. Traditions passed down to her by her father and grandfather and their fathers before them for millennia. Mary loves to paint, to learn more about her culture. “We [family] get together and as we paint we all tell stories”.

Pikilyi is a large and important waterhole and natural spring near Mount Doreen station. Pikilyi Jukurrpa (Vaughan Springs Dreaming) tells of the home of two rainbow serpents, ancestral heroes who lived together as man and wife. The woman ‘rainbow serpent’ was of the Napanangka skin group, the man was a Japangardi. This was a taboo relationship contrary to Warlpiri religious law. Women of the Napanangka and Napangardi subsection sat by the two serpents, picking lice off them. For this service, the two serpents allowed the women to take water from the springs at Pikilyi. This was because the serpents were the ‘kirda’, or ceremonial owners, for that country. The spirits of these two rainbow serpents are still at Pikilyi today. This Dreamings belongs to the women and men of the Japanangka/Napanangka and Japangardi/Napangardi skin groups.