This painting depicts bush tucker, food collected by karnta (women) while out hunting. There is a wide variety of traditional food that warlpiri people continue to gather and consume as a part of their diet. Many of the foods have their own Jukurrpa (dreaming) associated with them. Some of the common bush tucker foods are ngarlkirdi (witchetty grub), wanakiji (bush tomato), yarla (bush potato), janmarda (bush onion), ngarlajiyi (bush carrot), Lukarrara (fringe rush seed), and yuparli (bush banana)
“I love to paint because it is beautiful.” Amy Napaljarri Dixon was born in c.1951 at Telegraph Station, now an historical reserve 4 km north of Alice Springs and the original site of the first European settlement in 1872. Between 1945-1963 the station was designated an Aboriginal reserve. Amy was raised nearby at St. Theresa Mission but when she was twelve she ran way and joined her family in Alice Springs. In 2005, after she lost her family, she moved to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs and has lived there since. She is married and has four daughters, three daughters, Theresa, Samantha and Geraldine Dixon, live in Yuendumu and one daughter Linda lives in Darwin. “I have a big mob of grandchildren who all go to school.” Amy has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre in Yuendumu, since 2008. Amy was one of the original members of the Jukurrpa group, based at the Institute of Aboriginal Development (IAD) in Alice Springs, where she first painted her principal Dreamings, Yurrampi Jukurrpa (Honey Ant Dreaming) and Nagarlkirdi Jukurrpa (Witchetty Grub Dreaming), with acrylics on canvas. She paints her father’s Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings which relate to her father’s land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories have been passed down to her by her father and her father’s father for millennia. She also enjoys painting coolamons, music sticks and boomerangs. When Amy is not painting or working for the Child Care Centre in Yuendumu, she loves to go walking in the bush with her husband.
