Yakari Napaltjarri

Pintupi Language Group

Untitled

61 x 55 cm

Ref No: YN1602094

This painting depicts designs associated with women's ceremonies at the rockhole and soakage water site of Ngaminya, just to the south-west of the Kiwirrkurra Community in Western Australia.
A group of ancestral women once gathered at this site to perform the dances and sing the songs associated with the area. While in the area they ate the edible berries and seeds including desert raisins. These berries can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked in coals to form a type of damper. Upon completion of the ceremonies at Ngaminya the women continued their travels east to Wirrulnga and then on to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay).

Yakari is the widow of Simon Tjakamarra, who painted for Papunya Tula Artists from the late 1970's until his death in 1990. Yakari lives and paints in the Kiwirrkura Community, although she often travels to Kintore as well as communities further west. Yakari completed her first paintings for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996 after starting as a group with other Kiwirrkura women.