Women’s Ceremony

Lorna Brown Napanangka’s work is covered in a myriad of sections of design elements common in the visual language of the desert: concentric circles indicating sacred sites and other places; journey lines joining these; and clusters of U-shapes to represent people or ancestors in human form. It is a complex composition that suggests a visual narrative connected to the all-powerful Tingari ancestors and their creative acts in Lorna Brown Napanangka’s grandfather’s country at Warren Creek, which she is entitled to paint. The shapes painted in this piece represent the creek, rockholes, soakage waters and sandhills in the area. During ancestral times, a large group of women camped at Warren Creek and gathered the edible berries and fruit growing in the vicinity. These included kampurarrpa (desert raisin), ili (desert fig), ipalu (bush banana) and pura (bush tomato). They also dug for ngari (honey ants) and maku (witchetty grubs).