Juliette Nampijinpa Brown, Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) - Mikanji, 30x30cm

• Artist - Juliette Nampijinpa Brown
• Community - Yuendumu
• Art Centre/Community organisation - Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation
• Catalogue number - 3120/14
• Materials - Acrylic on pre-stretched canvas 
• Size(cm) - H30 W30 D3.5 
• Postage variants - This work is posted pre-stretched and ready to hang

The country associated with this Ngapa Jukurrpa (water Dreaming) is Mikanji, a watercourse that is usually dry, west of Yuendumu. In this creek bed there are ‘mulju’ (soakages). The custodians of this Jukurrpa are men of the Jangala/Jampijinpa skin groups, and women of the Nangala/Nampijinpa skin groups. The Dreaming travelled from Puyurru, northwest of Yuendumu to a ‘mulju’ in the Mikanji creek. By the side of the soakages two old blind women of the Nampijinpa skin group were sitting. A rain ancestor travelled to Mikanji from Puyurru and unleashed a huge storm. As the two women strained their eyes to see the sky, tears formed in their eyes, creating the rain. Their spirits can still be seen at Mikanji in the form of two ‘ngapiri’ (river red gums) growing near the soakage. Motifs frequently used to depict this story include concentric circles representing ‘mulju’ (water soakages) and short bars depicting ‘mangkurdu’ (cumulus & stratocumulus clouds).

Juliette Nampijinpa Brown was born in 1971 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km from Alice Springs in NT of Australia. Juliette was born into a long line of artists, her mother is Wendy Nungarrayi Brown and her grandparents are Bessie Nakamarra Sims (1932 - 2012) and Paddy Japaljarri Sims (1916-2010), all renowned artists, nationally and internationally and who paint and have painted with Walukurlangu Artists. Juliette attended Yuendumu School, which she enjoyed very much. When she left school she became a volunteer with the Old People’s Program, a program that helps care for the elderly. She has three children, “all grown up” and five grandchildren. Juliette has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 2008. She paints her grandfather’s Jukurrpa stories; Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) and Pamapardu Jukurrpa (Flying Ant Dreaming). These stories relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. Juliette uses an unrestricted palette with traditional patterns and designs that stretch back at least fifty millennia to depict her traditional Jukurrpa. Juliette loves painting and enjoys sitting with her grandchildren while she paints. As the grandchildren watch she passes down her grandfather’s stories. When Juliette is not painting she loves to go hunting for honey ants.

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