Sharon Numina Napanangka / Women’s Bush Tucker – Plums (A11991)

Born: 1981
Community: Utopia, Central Desert
Outstation: Stirling Station
Language: Anmatyerre

Sharon Numina is an Anmatyerre artist and one of six sisters and three brothers. Her mother is artist Barbara Pananka Mbitjana. She went to primary school at Stirling Station, a cattle station near Tennant Creek where she began painting at a young age, taking guidance from her world renowned aunties Gloria and Kathleen Petyarre. She later moved to Darwin with her family and continued her studies at Charles Darwin University where she obtained a degree in fine arts.

Sharon lives in Darwin with her four sisters, Jacinta, Lanita, Louise and Caroline Numina, who are also well respected artists from Utopia.

Aboriginal women have their own ceremonies in which a series of song and dance cycles tell of the Ancestral Beings who walked the earth teaching women’s law and ceremony to isolated groups living throughout the desert. Each tribe has its own set of women ancestors with different stories, designs and dances, but most of the ceremonies have one theme common to all groups – that of food gathering as the most important part of women’s lives. Men also can depict women’s dreamings, but they frown on women painting men’s ceremonies. The song and dance cycles mainly revolve around bush tucker, such as yam, banana, wild tomato, plum, onions, honey ants, witchetty grubs, nuts and berries. In their paintings they depict the implements they use, including digging sticks, grinding stones, and coolamons for carrying.

The abstract figures they show are the same as those painted by men. For example, a ‘U’ shape represents a person or groups of people sitting down with crossed legs. A larger ‘U’ indicates a windbreak. Concentric circles can represent a campsite, stone, waterhole or fire. The exact imprint of human feet or animal paws depicts tracks of humans, emus, possums, kangaroos etc. Many of the paintings depict the body paint design, which is applied to their upper bodies during the performing of the ceremonies, these often are lines, circles and dots.

Bush Plum
A small shrub (approx. 2 meters), it is not a true plum but a relative of sandalwood. It grows throughout the arid desert regions. The small oval fruit are very popular with a small amount of juicy flesh packed with Vitamin C, surrounding a large stone.

This painting represents the four main areas where the women collect the edible bush berries and plums, which is one of the main parts of their diet. The dotted lines show their travel paths.