Amanda Nakamarra Curtis, Majardi Jukurrpa - Mina Mina, 46x46cm

• Artist - Amanda Nakamarra Curtis
• Community - Nyirripi 
• Art Centre/Community organisation - Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation  
• Catalogue number - 7-16ny
• Materials - Acrylic on canvas  
• Size(cm) - H46 W46 D2 
• Postage variants - Artwork is posted un-stretched and rolled for safe shipping

This painting is of the Majardi Jukurrpa (hair-string belt or tassel Dreaming). Majardi is a belt or pubic tassel made of ‘purdurru’ (spun hair or fur) worn during traditional ceremonies. Human hair (and sometimes the fur from wallabies or possums) is rolled on the thigh and then spun using a ‘wirinkirri’ (stick spindle). The string is then incorporated into a skirt or pubic tassel that is worn by men or women while dancing during ceremonies. In the time of the Jukurrpa, ancestral hero women of the Napangardi and Napanangka kinship subsections were living at Mina-Mina, a site of great religious significance far to the west of Yuendumu. The women travelled over their country performing ceremonies and dances wearing their ‘majardi’. This Dreaming belongs to the women of the Napangardi/Napanangka subsections and to their classificatory brothers, the Japangardi/Japanangka men.

Amanda Nakamarra Curtis was born in 1986, in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal community, 460 km north-west of Alice Springs in the Central Desert of Australia. She was born into a family of artists, including Kelly Napanangka Michaels, her mother, Roy Jupurrurla Curtis, her father and Alice Nampijinpa Henwood Michaels, her Aunty. She has three sisters who also paint for Warlukurlangu Artists. Amanda spent most of her childhood in Nyirripi, where she attended the local school, before going to Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs. Upon completion of her studies she returned to Nyirripi where she has lived ever since. She is married and has one daughter. In 2007 Amanda began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs. 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. Amanda paints her grandparent’s dreaming on her mother’s side, Dreamings which relate directly to her land, Mina Mina, a site of great religious significance far to the west of Yuendumu. Dreamings such as her Marrjadi Jukurrpa (Hairstring Belt or Tassel Dreaming) and Karntakulangu Jukurrpa (Women's Dreaming- Mina Mina). She also paints Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming), stories from her father’s side. These stories have been passed down for millennia. “I like the patterns and all those colours, and the stories. Watching family painting, they show you the dreaming. Painting also keeps you busy!” When Amanda is not painting she likes to go hunting with her extended family.

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