Sharon Turner Napananka / Bush Tucker Dreaming (1A)

Sharon Turner is the daughter of artist, Caroline Numina and Daniel Turner. Caroline’s father is Douglas Pananka Petyarre (deceased). Her mother is Barbara Pananka Mbitjana who is an elder painter and cultural elder from Stirling Station. Caroline is an Anmatyerre artist from Ti Tree, 190km North of Alice Springs in Central Australia and grew up on Stirling Station, a cattle station south of Tennant Creek along with her Five sisters Jacinta, Lanita, Louise, Selina and Sharon Numina, who are also well-respected artists from Utopia and three brothers.

Sharon attended primary school at Stirling Station, where she began painting at a young age, taking guidance from her aunties as well as world-renowned aunties Gloria and Kathleen Petyarre. Caroline and Sharon later moved to Darwin with their family. In Darwin Sharon attended primary school at Sanderson Middle School and then went on to complete year 10 and 11 at Casuarina High School.

In this painting, Sharon has depicted a number of women with their coolamons and digging sticks collecting bush plums, honey ants and a goanna, all of which are part of their staple diet.

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 dreaming, 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.