Lynette Nampijinpa Granites, Warlukurlangu Jukurrpa (Fire country Dreaming), 50x40cm

• Aboriginal Artist - Lynette Nampijinpa Granites
• Community - Yuendumu
• Aboriginal Art Centre - Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation
• Catalogue number - 1520/23
• Materials - Acrylic on pre-stretched canvas 
• Size(cm) - H50 W40 D3.5 
• Postage variants - This work is posted pre-stretched and ready to hang
• Orientation - Painted from all sides and OK to hang as wished

This Dreaming belongs to Warlukurlangu country to the south-west of Yuendumu, for which Jampijinpa/Jangala men and Nampijinpa/Nangala women have custodial responsibility. An old man ‘lungkarda’ (centralian blue-tongued lizard [Tiliqua multifasciata]), of the Jampijinpa skin group, lived on a hill with his two Jangala sons. The old man would feign blindness and send the two boys hunting in search of meat. While they were gone he would hunt and eat anything that he caught before they returned. One day the sons returned with a kangaroo that they had caught after much tracking. Unfortunately the kangaroo was sacred to the ‘lungkarda’, unbeknown to the boys. In his anger the old man decided to punish his sons and the next time they went out, he put his fire stick to the ground and sent a huge bush fire after them which chased them for many miles, at times propelling them through the air. Although the boys beat out the flames, ‘lungkarda's’ special magic kept the fire alive and it re-appeared out of his blue-tongued lizard hole. Exhausted the boys were finally overcome by the flames. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings traditional iconography is used to represent the Jukurrpa, particular sites and other elements. Usually sites that are depicted in paintings of this Jukurrpa include Warlukurlangu (a men's cave), Kirrkirrmanu (where the sacred kangaroo was killed), Wayililinypa (where the fire killed the two Jangala sons) and Marnimarnu (a water soakage) where the two Jangalas camped.

Lynette Nampijinpa Granites was born in 1945 at Mt Doreen Station. Mt Doreen Station is an extensive cattle breeding station about 55 km west of Yuendumu, an Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. When Lynette was a little girl she grew up and was educated at the Baptist Mission in Yuendumu. She married first her promised husband and had two children and later married her second husband Harry Nelson, a Warlpiri elder and former Yuendumu Council President. In 1973 Lynette began working at the Health Centre in Yuendumu. She did extensive training and soon became a Health worker. Her job took her to Darwin, Alice Springs and Adelaide where she attended workshops and conferences. She is now retired. Lynette has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 1987. She paints her father’s and grandfather’s Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings which relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories were told to her by her sisters, particularly her big sister. “All my sisters are gone now but they taught me to paint, they told me my stories. What I like about painting is the Dreamings.” When Lynette is not painting she likes to sit down with her grandchildren and tell them the stories her sisters told her.