Marita Napanangka Marshall, Yuparli Jukurrpa (Bush Banana Dreaming), 46x46cm

• Artist - Marita Napanangka Marshall
• Community - Yuendumu  
• Art Centre/Community organisation - Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation
• Catalogue number - 1093/18ny
• Materials - Acrylic on canvas 
• Size(cm) - H46 W46 D2  
• Postage variants - Artwork posted un-stretched and rolled for safe shipping
• Orientation - Painted from all sides and OK to hang as wished

The Yuparli Jukurrpa (bush banana [Leichhardtia australis] Dreaming) is the story of a fruit bearing creeper that grows up trees and produces fruit with many fine, winged seeds inside. ‘Yapa’ (Warlpiri people) like to cook them in the coals, particularly the young juicy ones that we call Yangardurrku. ‘Yapa’ also eat the small white flowers and the leaves, which have a delicious nutty taste. One story for this Jukurrpa is of two ancestral ‘karnta’ (women) of the Napangardi and Napanangka skin groups who travelled south from Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs, west of Yuendumu) through country near Karrinyarra (Mount Wedge) to the south and re-emerged at two ‘mulju’ soakages) at Yinjirimardi, west of Yuendumu. They were accompanied by a man of the Japangardi skin group. He would sometimes change himself into a ‘warlawurru’ (wedge-tailed eagle) and fly behind them. Unknown to the Napangardi women, her Japangardi classificatory brother and the Napanangka were lovers. They travelled further north and returned to Pikilyi where they entered the ground, creating the large freshwater springs that are still there today. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, associated sites and other elements. A variety of images and signs are used to depict the various elements of this story.

Marita Napanangka Marshall was born in 1990 in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She is the daughter of Monica Napaljarri Nelson and Bruce Marshall (Dec). She has one sister and two brothers. She attended the local School in Yuendumu before going to Yirara College, a boarding school for Indigenous students from remote communities. When she left school, she returned home to Yuendumu and worked for the Community Development Employment Project - Centre Link.

Marita began painting for Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, in 2008, when she first left school. She paints her father’s Yuparli Jukurrpa (Bush Banana Dreaming), ‘Dreamings” that relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories were passed down to her by her father and his father’s father before him for millennia. She loves painting and loves colour, and uses an unrestricted palette to depict her traditional iconography, at the same time developing a modern individualist style, using pattern and design in a variety of contexts.

Marita moved to Nyirripi in 2018 to be with her mother. When she’s not painting, she loves to go out hunting with family and friends.