Pirlinyanu Dreaming, 2011 by Julie Nangala Robertson 122x91cm Cat 14214JR

The eldest daughter of highly acclaimed artist, Dorothy Napangardi, Julie is following in her mother's footsteps. She was awarded the prestigious Telstra Aboriginal Art Award Best Painting category in August 2023.

This painting is about an important Water Dreaming ( Ngapa Jukurrpa ) site in the Tanami Desert. It is a rocky outcrop known as Pirlinyanu , which is located west of Yuendumu towards the Western Australia border. This dreaming belongs to those of the Nangala/Jangala and those of the Nampitjinpa/Jampijinpa kinship group (skin).

It is significant site as it provides fresh drinking water all of the year. There are many stories associated with the power of this site, including a love story about a very virile man searching for his loved one.

You can see for miles and miles from the top of this site. When travelling west it is rarely a featureless landscape, but striking with the light as it shines through giant grey spinifex grass and the very large termite mounds that are scattered like sculptures throughout.

The unsealed road that takes you from Yuendumu to Nyrripi outstation, continues onto Mina Mina , the artist's mother's country. Access means forging a track through the spinifex (the resin of the spinifex is highly flammable) and travelling a small distance each day. As we have discovered, although it is laborious, the drive is not the hardest part. What is hard is finding a passage through the sand hills as they are shifting and moving all the time.

An important water source in this inhospitable country is highly revered.

The eldest of the five daughters of Dorothy Napangardi Robinson, Julie has recently changed the spelling of her surname to Robertson, feeling that her father, Windy, had misspelt it as Julie's other relatives in Yuendumu are all Robertson. Windy had two wives, Rene Robinson and Dorothy Robinson.