Michelle Lewis, Tjala Tjukurpa (Honey Ant Dreaming), 175x124cm

• Aboriginal Artist  - Michelle Lewis
• Community - Pukatja (Ernabella) 
• Aboriginal Art- centre - Ernabella Arts
• Catalogue number - 228/26
• Materials - Professional artist acrylic on canvas
• Size(cm) - H175 W124 D2
• Postage variants - Artwork posted un-stretched and rolled for safe shipping
• Orientation - Painted from all sides and OK to hang as wished

Michelle’s father’s country is Tjala Tjukurpa (Honey Ant Dreaming). Michelle and her family still visit this country, where she pays special attention to the natural elements on the land, which are then represented in her paintings: “I am showing the landscape from above, as you might see it from an airplane or as a bird looking down. It is beautiful country both from on the ground and up above.”

In Michelle’s work she shows how the tjala (honey ants) tunnel through the sandy soil. She also depicts the small groupings of intergenerational women and children sitting together and digging for the tjala. The earth is shown as soft because it has been raining.

Tjala, or honey ants, live in nests about a metre underground beneath mulga trees, and they are a highly favoured food source. The tjala tunnels that lead down to the ants’ nests are called nyinantu, and the larvae are called ipilyka-ipilyka. After the rain, when the ground is soft, the women go digging for tjala by looking for the drill holes under the trees. They then use shovels and crowbars to dig down, following the tunnels to find the tjala inside. Anangu suck the delicious, rich, honey-like liquid from the distended abdomen of the tjala. The story of the tjala is told across the Northern Territory into South Australia and is an important link between Anangu mythology and interdependence with the environment.

Fixes: “Aangu” to “Anangu” (use “Aṉangu” if your font handles the underline), “though” to “through”, quote marks around Michelle’s words, “creates how” to “shows how”, “inter-dependence on” to “interdependence with”, plus missing commas and paragraph breaks.

Michelle Lewis was born in Ernabella in 1983 where she went to school in Ernabella and later worked at the Ernabella Clinic. Michelle Lewis is a rising star of the Ernabella painting studio. She is daughter to senior painter Atipalku Intjalki and master punu (wood) maker Adrian Intjalki. Her sisters are Langaliki and Lynette Lewis are both accomplished artists.

Michelle began painting at the very end of 2017 and has quickly developed an individual style based around her father's country at Makiri, east of Ernabella. She has three children.