Warla: An exploration of the Salt Lakes in the Great Sandy Desert
Past exhibition
Nora Wompi Australian, Manyjilyjarra, b. 1939
Punmu and Kunawarritji
acrylic on linen
91 x 122 cm
788652
This painting depicts the area around Punmu and Kunawarritji, near the Canning Stock Route. Lake Dora, a salt lake that dominates the landscape at Punmu, is featured in the lower...
This painting depicts the area around Punmu and Kunawarritji, near the Canning Stock Route. Lake Dora, a salt lake that dominates the landscape at Punmu, is featured in the lower half of the painting, and the kapi (water) at Kunawarritji is the circular feature in the middle of the painting.
Wompi paints the country around her homelands of Kunawarritji, a place associated with the Minyi Puru Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming). In 1906, Kunawarrtiji also became a well on the Canning Stock Route, and from an early age Wompi and her family had encounters with the white men who drove cattle along the route. As a young woman, Wompi followed the drovers north to Balgo Mission, where she stayed for many years. She learnt to paint there with her close friend, Eubena Nampitjin, and returned to Kunawarritji, where she lives and paints today, when it became a community in its own right.
Wompi paints the country around her homelands of Kunawarritji, a place associated with the Minyi Puru Jukurrpa (Seven Sisters Dreaming). In 1906, Kunawarrtiji also became a well on the Canning Stock Route, and from an early age Wompi and her family had encounters with the white men who drove cattle along the route. As a young woman, Wompi followed the drovers north to Balgo Mission, where she stayed for many years. She learnt to paint there with her close friend, Eubena Nampitjin, and returned to Kunawarritji, where she lives and paints today, when it became a community in its own right.