Saraeva Napangardi Marshall / Mina Mina Dreaming (3A)

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

Saraeva Napangardi Marshall was born on the 24 December 1996 to Julie Nangala Robertson (a Warlukurlangu Artist) and Nigel Japanangka Marshall. She is the grand-daughter of the well-known Telstra Award winning artist, Dorothy Napangardi (dec 2013). Although born in Adelaide Hospital, Saraeva has spent her whole life in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 kms north-west of Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Saraeva has been painting from an early age with her mother and grandmother and painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation in Yuendumu, since 2013. She paints her Grandmother’s Mina Mina Jukurrpa (Mina Mina Dreaming). Her grandmother would paint and tell her about the important women’s dreaming site, about the ancestral women travelling and dancing and performing ceremonies and creating the country as they travelled. These stories have been passed down through the generations for millennia. To depict her traditional Jukurrpa, Saraeva uses a wide range of colours and traditional iconography while developing a contemporary style.

When Saraeva is not studying or painting she likes to go hunting with her family for goanna and bush tucker.

Mina Mina is the area or country this painting is depicting. It is far west of Yuendumu and is very important to the Napangardi/Napanangka women. These women and their Japangardi/Japanangka brothers, are the custodians of the Jukurrpa that created the area. This story (Dreaming) tells of the journey of a group of women who travelled east gathering food, ngalyipi‟ (snake vine) and performing ceremonies as they journeyed. The ‘ngalyipi’ vine grows up the trunks and branches of the ‘kurrkara’ (desert oak trees. ‘Ngalyipi’ is a sacred vine to Napangardi and Napanangka women that has many uses. It can be used as a ceremonial wrap, as a strap to carry ‘parrajas’ (wooden bowls) that are laden with bush tucker and as a bandage for headaches.

The women began their travels at Mina Mina where karlangu‟ (digging sticks) emerged from the ground. Taking these tools the women travelled east creating Janyinki and other sites. Their travels took them eventually further than Warlpiri country. The women used the karlangu‟ to gather bush tucker on their travels. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, connected sites and other elements. The main theme used in paintings of these Dreaming are the karlangu”