Amelia Napaljarri Brown, Pikilyi Jukurrpa, 61x30cm

• Artist - Amelia Napaljarri Brown
• Community - Yuendumu  
• Art Centre/Community organisation - Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation  
• Catalogue number - 5386/16   
• Materials - Acrylic on canvas
• Size(cm) - H61 W30 D2  
• Postage variants - Artwork posted un-stretched and rolled for safe shipping

Pikilyi is a large and important waterhole and natural spring near Mount Doreen station. Pikilyi Jukurrpa (Vaughan Springs Dreaming) tells of the home of two rainbow serpents, ancestral heroes who lived together as man and wife. The woman ‘rainbow serpent’ was of the Napanangka skin group, the man was a Japangardi. This was a taboo relationship contrary to Warlpiri religious law. Women of the Napanangka and Napangardi subsection sat by the two serpents, picking lice off them. For this service, the two serpents allowed the women to take water from the springs at Pikilyi. This was because the serpents were the ‘kirda’, or ceremonial owners, for that country. The spirits of these two rainbow serpents are still at Pikilyi today. This Dreamings belongs to the women and men of the Japanangka/Napanangka and Japangardi/Napangardi skin groups.

Amelia Napaljarri Brown was born in 1952 in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community located 290 kms north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia.  She was born into a large family. Amelia went to the local school with her sisters and brothers. She later married and had 4 children.

Amelia has been painting for Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation; an Aboriginal owned and governed Art Centre, since 1996. She paints her Father’s Jukurrpa, in particular Pikilyi Jukurrpa (Vaughan Springs Dreaming) and Kanta Jukurrpa (Women’s Dreaming) from her father’s side. These dreamings relate directly to the land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. They were passed down to her father by his father and his father’s father before him for millennia. Amelia uses traditional designs and icons with an unrestricted palette to develop a modern interpretation of her traditional culture.

Amelia enjoys painting at the art centre and when her children were young she would tell them stories as she painted. These days, when she’s not painting she spends time with her grandchildren (all girls) and loves going on bush trips with the kids, looking for bush tucker such as bush banana, bush tomato, bush yam, and honey ants.

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