Rachael Nambula / Bush Tucker and Pencil Yam (RN20)

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 celebrate the rich bush foods and plant life of her Country in the Utopia region of Central Australia, with the Pencil Yam Dreaming forming an important part of the story.

The Pencil Yam, known as Atnwelarre, is a trailing plant with green leaves, yellow flowers and long, slender yams growing beneath the ground. An important traditional food, the yams can be eaten raw or cooked in hot sand and ashes. Knowledge of the plant and its Dreaming has been passed through Rachael’s family, including her mother Evelyn Pultara and uncle Greeny Purvis Petyarre, both senior artists closely associated with the Atnwelarre story.

Across the canvas, Rachael brings together sweeping leaf-like forms, clusters of rounded shapes and intricate fields of dot work, creating a richly layered impression of plant life across Country. Rather than depicting a single plant in botanical detail, the different forms evoke the abundance of bush tucker, seeds, foliage and other native plants gathered and known by generations of women.

Colour moves freely throughout the composition, while repeated forms create a sense of growth and movement across the surface. Through these vibrant and highly detailed works, Rachael celebrates the Pencil Yam and the broader knowledge of bush foods, plants and Country passed through her family.