Minyma Tingari - Sandhill Country, 2000 by Barbara Napangarti Reid 41x41cm Cat 5231BR

This work by Barbara Reid is her Minyma Tingari (Women’s Dreaming). This is the Tingari women (represented by the ‘U shapes’) travelling to the ceremonial sites that surround Tjukurla (Western Desert). This monochromatic muted and work depicts the natural landscape of sand hills and rock holes that are the significant places where the Tingari women perform and narrate their ceremonies and dreamtime stories.

The iconography in this work can also be seen as representative of the body paint worn by Ngaanyatjarra women whilst performing their Tingari ceremonies: a vitally important aspects of the continuity of cultural practice, in that they form a major part of the investiture teachings of the post-initiatory, as well as providing explanations for contemporary customs.