Portia Napanangka Michaels, Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa, 122x91cm

• Aboriginal Artist - Portia Napanangka Michaels
• Community - Nyirripi
• Aboriginal Art Centre - Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation
• Catalogue number - 679/24ny
• Materials - Acrylic paint on canvas
• Size(cm) - H122 W91 D2
• Postage variants - This work is posted rolled for safe shipping
• Orientation - Painted from all sides and OK to hang as wished

The subject of this work is Lappi Lappi, a rock hole near Lake Hazlett, about 90 km northwest of Lake Mackay in Western Australia. The country belongs to Nampijinpa/Jampijinpa and Nangala/Jangala skin groups. Located in a sheltered basin, the rock hole at Lappi Lappi is a permanent source of water, and is surrounded by country rich in bush tucker. In the time of the Jukurrpa (Dreamtime) many mothers with young children would gather there because it was a safe place to stay. The rock hole at Lappi Lappi is home to a ‘warnayarra’, a rainbow serpent that travels underground between various rock holes. One day, women were gathered at the rock hole with their children, singing and dancing. When the ‘warnayarra’ heard the sound of voices, it travelled silently towards them, under the water. When it reached the edge of the rock hole, it rose out of the water and ate them all.

Portia Napanangka Michaels was born in 1967 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. She was born into a family of artists. She is the daughter of Mary Anne Nampijinpa Michaels, a well-known Warlukurlangu artist. Portia has two sisters and two brothers and lives in Nyirripi, an Aboriginal community 150 km west of Yuendumu. She attended Yuendumu local school before going to Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding school in Alice Springs. When she finished school she returned to Nyirripi where she has been working for the Age care. Portia has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre in Yuendumu, since 2007. Warlukurlangu Artists provides an outlet for Warlpiri artists to paint their cultural heritage and earn income from their work. This service is extended to Nyirripi artists, on a weekly basis, by delivering canvas and paint to artists and picking up finished artwork in Nyirripi. “I watched my mother paint and my grandmother paint. They told me all about the dreaming.” Portia paints Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa (Lappi Lappi Dreaming) from her mother’s side and Janganpa Jukurrpa (Brush-tailed possum Dreaming) from her father’s side. These stories have been passed down to her by her father and mother and their parents before them for millennia. When Portia is not painting she likes to go hunting for goanna.