Nellie Nangala Wayne / Water Dreaming

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

Nellie Nangala Wayne was born at Mt Doreen Station, an extensive cattle breeding station about 55km west of Yuendumu, an Aboriginal community located 290 kms north-west of Alice Springs on the Tanami Highway.

When she was a little girl she moved with her parents to Yuendumu, where she grew up. She attended the local Yuendumu high school. Nellie later married and had three children who are all grown up now. She has many grandchildren whom she is very close to and helps to look after. Nellie has worked with the school, the Yuendumu Old People’s Program and with the Women’s Center. She has also been an important member of the Women’s Night Patrol. She still works for the Old People’s Program, an organization that cares for the elderly by helping them when they are sick, and being with them when they are alone or when they are frightened during storms.

Nellie has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists since 2006. She mainly paints her father’s Jukurrpa, Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) and Yankirri Jukurrpa (Emu Dreaming), Dreaming stories about her country which have been passed down to her by her father and her father’s father, and their fathers before them. These stories relate directly to Nellie’s traditional country, its features and the animals and plants that live on the land. When Nellie is not painting, she sometimes goes hunting with her stepmother, friends and family. She likes hunting for bush goanna and bush tucker.

The country associated with this Ngapa Jukurrpa (water Dreaming) is Mikanji, a watercourse that is usually dry, west of Yuendumu. In this creek bed there are ‘mulju’ (soakages). The custodians of this Jukurrpa are men of the Jangala/Jampijinpa skin groups, and women of the Nangala/Nampijinpa skin groups.

The Dreaming travelled from Puyurru, northwest of Yuendumu to a ‘mulju’ in the Mikanji creek. By the side of the soakages two old blind women of the Nampijinpa skin group were sitting. A rain ancestor travelled to Mikanji from Puyurru and unleashed a huge storm. As the two women strained their eyes to see the sky, tears formed in their eyes, creating the rain. Their spirits can still be seen at Mikanji in the form of two ‘ngapiri’ (river red gums) growing near the soakage. Motifs frequently used to depict this story include concentric circles representing ‘mulju’ (water soakages) and short bars depicting ‘mangkurdu’ (cumulus & stratocumulus clouds).