Karntakurlangu (Women's Dreaming), 2008 by Dorothy Napangardi 41x31cm Cat 13796DN

In this delightful small work the artist has created striking ochre, white on black designs depicting the ancestral women dancing across the country of Mina Mina across the terrain, around the soakages of Mina Mina and the crustations that form when rainwater recedes; through the spinifex clumps and over the sand hills.

Mina Mina, the artist’s custodial country, is 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 stand of Desert Oaks ( Allocasuarina decaisneana ) now grow where these digging sticks emerged from the ground