Megan Nampijinpa Kantamarra, Janmarda Jukurrpa (Bush Onion Dreaming), 30x30cm

• Aboriginal Artist - Megan Nampijinpa Kantamarra
• Community - Nyrirripi  
• Aboriginal Art Centre- Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation  
• Catalogue number - 8705/22
• Materials - Acrylic on pre-stretched canvas  
• Size(cm) - H30 W30 D3.5  
• Postage variants - Artwork posted stretched and ready to hang
• Orientation - Painted from all sides and OK to hang as wished

‘Janmarda’ (bush onion [Cyperus bulbosus]) are small bulbs found in the soft soils on the banks of sandy creeks. One of the main sites for this Jukurrpa is Purrupurru near Wakurlpa, to the north of Yuendumu. The custodians of that site and story are Napaljarri/Nungarrayi women and Japaljarri/Jungarrayi men. The women were collecting and cooking ‘janmarda’ when they saw an old Jungarrayi called Warungurla who had been traveling from the west. He was hiding in the bushes, watching the women and wanting to make love to them. He had an enormous ‘ngirnti’ (penis) that was long like a hose and that entered the ground and came up near to the women. They were frightened of him and tried to hide. When they saw his ‘ngirnti’ they beat it with their ‘karlangu’ (digging sticks), killing the old Jungarrayi, who can still be seen today in the form of a large stone figure at Purrupurru.

Megan Nampijinpa Kantamarra is a Pintupi Luritja woman, born on the 18 February, 2000, in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to her father’s country Watiyawanu (Mt Liebig) and her mother’s country, Papunya, remote aboriginal communities approximately 325 km west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. Megan spent her early years at Warren Creek, near Mt Liebig before attending Yirara College, a boarding school for Indigenous students from remote communities in the Northern Territory. She finished her education at Kormilda College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Darwin. When she finished school, she went to Nyirripi, a remote aboriginal community 168 km SW of Papunya to live with her grandmother, Maisie Napaljarri Campbell, a major Pintupi artist who began painting in Papunya.

Megan began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, in 2016. “I like colours and patterns . . . they make me happy . . . I paint my Grandmother’s Story”. Her grandfather's country is Warren Creek – a large hill and the home of a sacred ochre mine (Mount Stanley), a 20-minute drive from Nyirrpi. Megan uses colour and patterns which she creatively combines to blend traditional motifs with her own ideas of modern design to represent her grandmother’s country.

When she is not painting, she likes to go hunting with her friends.

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