Nikita Nungarrayi Morris / Brush-tail Possum Dreaming (269-21ny)

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

Nikita Nungarrayi Morris was born in 1993 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal community 450km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She was born to Nancy Napurrurla Dickson and Hamilton Japaljarri Morris. Nikita has three sisters and one brother. Her grandparents are Valerie Napurrurla and Mosquito Jungarrayi Morris, both well-known artists working with Warlukurlangu Art Centre. Nikita attended the local Nyirripi Primary School but completed her schooling in Melbourne where she attended Warowa Aboriginal College. Worawa Aboriginal College provides a holistic education and boarding experience for young Aboriginal women in the middle years of Schooling (Years 7-10). She continues her studies through the Batchelor Institute, Indigenous Tertiary Education. She also works at the local shop in Nyirripi.

Nikita enjoyed painting at school and since 2014 has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community, 150kms east of Nyirripi. She paints her Grandfather’s country Jukurrpa, Yarungkanyi (Mt Doreen). These dreamings are related directly to the land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. They have been passed down through the generations for at least fifty millennia.

When Nikita is not working, studying or painting she loves to go hunting, especially hunting for goanna.

Janganpa Jukurrpa (brush-tail possum Dreaming) travels all over Warlpiri country. ‘Janganpa’ are nocturnal animals that often nest in the hollows of white gum trees (‘wapunungka’). This story comes from a big hill called Mawurrji, west of Yuendumu and north of Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs). A group of ‘janganpa’ ancestors resided there. Every night they would go out in search of food. Their hunting trips took them to Wirlki and Wanapirdi, where they found ‘pamapardu’ (flying ants). They journeyed on to Ngarlkirdipini looking for water. A Nampijinpa women was living at Mawurrji with her two daughters. She gave her daughters in marriage to a Jupurrurla ‘janganpa’ but later decided to run away with them. The Jupurrurla angrily pursued the woman. He tracked them to Mawurrji where he killed them with a stone axe. Their bodies are now rocks at this place. Warlpiri people perform a young men’s initiation ceremony, which involves the Janganpa Jukurrpa.