Sandhills, 2007 by Dorothy Napangardi 91x91cm Cat 9566DN

In this painting, the artist has captured sandhills running endlessly across the horizon that are in constant flux through her country.

This is 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 of Australia. Made up of two enormous soakage areas and endless sandhills, Mina Mina is where Dorothy and her aunts (Napanangkas) perform rituals of dance and song as part of their passing on of Tjukurrpa.

During the Tjukurrpa 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 trees ( Allocasuarina decaisneana ) now stand where these digging sticks once were.