Rachael Nambula / Bush Medicine (19821)

Rachael Nambula was born in 1970 at Stirling Station, north of Ti Tree in Central Australia, and is part of one of the most renowned painting families to emerge from the Utopia region.

She is the daughter of acclaimed artist Evelyn Pultara, winner of the 2005 Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, and the niece of the late Greeny Purvis Petyarre, a respected tribal elder, ceremonial leader and senior artist from Boundary Bore, Utopia. Her extended family includes some of the most celebrated names in contemporary Aboriginal art, including Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Minnie Pwerle, Barbara Weir and Gloria Petyarre.

Rachael began painting in the 1990s, learning alongside her mother and senior female relatives. Through these women she developed a deep understanding of Country, Bush Medicine Dreaming and the traditional stories connected to her homeland.

Her artworks are rich with movement, detail and colour, capturing the beauty of the desert landscape after rain when bush flowers bloom and medicinal plants flourish across the country. Bush medicine and bush tucker are central themes in her paintings, particularly the Pencil Yam Dreaming inherited through her family line.

Today, Rachael lives back on the Utopia homelands with her husband and children, where she continues to paint the stories, plants and seasonal rhythms of her Country.

Rachael Nambula’s paintings depict the rich bush medicine and bush tucker found throughout her homeland in the Utopia region of Central Australia.

A prominent feature in many of her artworks is the Pencil Yam, known as Atnwelarre in Anmatyerre language. This important medicinal and food plant grows as a trailing creeper across the desert landscape, producing bright green leaves, yellow flowers and long slender underground yams. Traditionally, the yam is gathered by women and can be eaten raw or cooked in hot sand and ashes. It remains an important traditional food source throughout the desert regions.

The Pencil Yam is also valued for its healing properties. The plant is traditionally used to treat cuts, wounds, bites and skin irritations, and is also used as a natural insect repellent.

Rachael also paints other native plants and bush foods gathered on Country, including Atnyerlenge (Native Fuchsia), whose flowers contain a sweet honey nectar, and Alpar, the Rat-Tail Goosefoot plant. Alpar is a small citrus-scented herb with distinctive long flowering spikes and tiny black seeds that are highly nutritious and rich in protein.

Through intricate layers of colour, dot work and flowing forms, Rachael’s paintings celebrate the abundance of desert life and the enduring cultural knowledge passed down through generations of women in her family.