Ritasha Nampilinpa Watson / Water Dreaming

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

Ritasha Nampilinpa Watson is the daughter of Andrea Nungarrayi Martin, distinguished artist and long time art coordinator at Warlukurlangu Artists. Although still young, she has been painting and exhibiting for a long time alongside her mother. She is married to Michael Japaljarri Wayne and they have one son, Johnny.

Ritasha was born in Alice Springs and has spent her whole life in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs. She attended the local school and when she finished her schooling she worked with the local Youth Program ‘Jaru Pijirdi’ helping to prevent petrol sniffing in the community. At the moment Ritasha is taking time off to look after her young son and to paint full time at the art centre.

Ritasha first started painting on little boards through the art centre’s school cultural maintenance program held during school holidays. She has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 2001 and has been exhibiting in Group Exhibitions in Australia, England and USA, since 2005.
Ritasha paints her Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) stories, Dreamings which relate to Pirlinyarnu country. These stories were passed down to her by her mother and her mother’s mother and their parents before them for millennia.

When Ritasha is not painting she likes to sit with her friends and their children telling stories about their country.

The site depicted in this painting is Pirlinyarnu (Mt. Farewell), about 165 km west of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. Two Jangala men, rainmakers, sang the rain, unleashing a giant storm that collided with another storm from Wapurtali. The two storms travelled across the country, from Karlipinpa near Kintore. A Kirrkarlanji (brown falcon [Falco berigora]) carried the storm further west until it dropped the storm at Pirlinyarnu, forming an enormous Maliri (lake). A “mulju” (soakage) exists in this place today. At Puyurru the bird dug up a ‘warnayarra’ (rainbow serpent). The serpent carried water with it to create another large lake. Whenever it rains today hundreds of ‘ngapangarlpa’ (bush ducks) still flock to Pirlinyarnu. The ‘kirda’ (custodians) for this Jukurrpa are Jangala/Jampijinpa men and Nangala/ Nampijinpa women.