Amanda Napangardi Dixon, Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming) - Cockatoo Creek, 30x30cm

• Artist - Amanda Napangardi Dixon
• Community - Yuendumu
• Art Centre/Community organisation - Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation
• Catalogue number - 5168/17
• Materials - Acrylic on pre-stretched canvas 
• Size(cm) - H30 W30 D3.5 
• Postage variants - This work is posted pre-stretched and ready to hang
• Orientation - Painted from all sides and OK to hang as wished

This Yarla Jukurrpa belongs to men of the Japaljarri/Jungarrayi subsections and to Napaljarri/Nungarrayi women. It comes from an area to the east of Yuendumu called Cockatoo Creek. ‘Yarla’ (bush potato [Ipomea costata]) are fibrous tubers that grow beneath a low spreading plant, found by looking for cracks in the ground. This edible tuber grows from ‘yartura’ (roots) which seek out moisture to spout new plants. Yarla are good to eat, when cooked they are really soft and tasty. The Jukurrpa tells of ‘yarla’ and ‘wapirti’ (bush carrot [Vigna lanceolata]) ancestors fighting a big battle in this area. The specific site associated with this painting is a ‘mulju’ (water soakage) called Ngarparapunyu. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, associated sites and other elements. The curved lines of the ‘kuruwarri’ (ceremonial designs) represent the ‘ngamarna’ (vine-like tendrils) from which grow ‘jinjirla’ (flowers). ‘Karlangu’ (digging sticks) are usually represented as strait lines. ‘Karlangu’are used by women to dig for bush tucker like Yarla and Wapirti which are found underground.

Amanda Napangardi Dixon was in born in 1985, in Alice Springs Hospital, NT. At the time her parents were living in Lajamanu, an Aboriginal community in semi-arid country on the edge of the Tanami Desert, halfway between Darwin and Alice Springs—592 km from Yuendumu. Amanda attended the local Lajamanu school and when she finished school she worked at the Clinic and later at the Shire Office. Both her parents have passed away but she has a Grandma, Judy Walker, who still lives in Lajamanu and paints with the local Art Centre, Warnayaka Art. She has a brother and a sister, Polly Anne Napangardi Dixon. Amanda moved to Yuendumu in 2015 and is “becoming a Yuendumu local”.

In 2016 Amanda began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu. She began using traditional iconography but because of her love for pattern and colour she has developed an individualist style using pattern in a variety of contexts to depict her traditional jukurrpa. She paints her Grandfather’s Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming) and her father’s Warna Jukurrpa (Snake Dreaming), stories that were passed down to her by her parents and their parents before them for millennia.

When Amanda is not painting, she enjoys playing basketball and softball and going hunting with friends and family.