‘Etching Suite’ - Spinifex Country, Salt, Sandhill Country, 2004 by Dorothy Napangardi

Cat No: DN-16, DN-17, DN-18
Edition: 50 (each)
Paper Size: 22.2 cm x 22.8 cm
Image Size: 12 cm x 10.1 cm
Medium: Colour aquatint with sugar lift aquatint (DN16 & DN18), Soap ground aquatint (DN17)
Plate: Dena Schuckit (master printer Crown Point Press)
& Belinda Fox (master printer Port Jackson Press)
Printer: National Art School, Sydney
Publisher: Crown Point Press

The ‘Etching Suite’ (Spinifex, Salt Country, Karntakurlangu Jukurrpa) – These etchings depicts a major women’s ceremonial site known as Mina Mina, the artist’s custodial country located near Lake Mackay in the Tanami Desert, north of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. During the Jukurrpa Ancestral women of the Napangardi and Napanangka sub-section groups (aunt / niece relationship, in which knowledge is passed from one to the other) gathered to collect ceremonial digging sticks ( Karlangu ) that had emerged from the ground. They then proceeded east, performing rituals of song and dance, to the place known as Jankinyi. A large belt of Desert Oaks ( Allocasuarina decaisneana ) now stand where these digging sticks once were.

In this series of etchings the artist has created striking designs depicting the ancestral women dancing across the country of Mina Mina across the terrain, around the soakage’s of Mina Mina and it’s crustations of salt; through the spinifex clumps and over the sand hills.

There is the option of having them framed either individually or in a single frame.

• Spinifex Country – DN-16
• Salt - DN-17
• Sandhill Country - DN-18