![Elizabeth Nyumi Nungurrayi, Parwalla , 2001](https://artlogic-res.cloudinary.com/w_1600,h_1600,c_limit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto/artlogicstorage/lesliesmith/images/view/0ba31720cca7cd91b43e83ba5c7758cbj/smithdavidsongallery-elizabeth-nyumi-nungurrayi-parwalla-2001.jpg)
Elizabeth Nyumi Nungurrayi Indigenous Australian (Pintupi), b. 1947
59.1 x 29.5 inch
A closely associated painting to Parwalla, 2001, by the same title, painted in the same year, was selected for the 2004 Biennale of Sydney. Together with two other works by Nyumi, it was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of a large international group exhibition. In the accompanying catalogue essay, Hetti Perkins defines this as ‘the most resolved series of paintings in her ongoing preoccupation with the country of her childhood’.1 Indeed, this work exemplifies the physical and spiritual connection of the artist to her country, in a symbiotic relationship that informs the entirety of Nyumi’s artistic output. Parwalla is the country where Nyumi lived as a child with her mother, before losing her in a tragic accident. After this, Nyumi led a nomadic existence with her father and family group, ultimately settling in the Wirrimanu community at Balgo, where she commenced painting in 1987 for the Warlayirti Artists cooperative.
The symbols depicted in Nyumi’s works are inherently feminine. She represents campsites, bush tucker, native flora and fauna and women’s food-gathering implements. These themes are rendered in a delicate, jewel-like style and soft palette of pastel yellows, oranges, pinks and creams, removed from the vigorous, painterly style and bright colors idiosyncratic to Balgo. Perkins highlights the influence of Nyumi’s matrilineal Pintupi heritage, and associates her with that extraordinary generation of desert women artists, beginning in the 1980s with Emily Kame Kngwarreye, followed by Pintupi artists at Kintore and Kiwirrkurra and spectacularly reinvented by the women artists at Warlayirti.
Please noted that all Aboriginal Art is created from a so called ‘Birds Eye’ view.
This means that the paintings can be hung either horizontally as well as vertically.
Provenance
Raft Artspace, Darwin
The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Sydney, purchased in September 2001
Private collection, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Literature
Beyond Sacred: Recent Painting from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, Hardie Grant Books, Melbourne, 2008, p. 116 (illus.)
Beyond Sacred: Australian Aboriginal Art: The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, edition II, Kleimeyer Industries Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2011, p. 128 (illus.)