Tjala (Honey ants)

$3,000.00

Tjala or honey ants live in nests about a metre underground beneath mulga trees, and they are a highly favoured food source. The tjala tunnels that lead down to the ants’ nests are called nyinantu, and the larvae are called ipilyka-ipilyka. After the rain when the ground is soft the women go digging for tjala by looking for the drill holes under the trees. They then use shovels and crowbars to dig down following the tunnels to find the tjala inside.  

Lynette Lewis began her career as an Aboriginal Arts Worker at Ernabella Arts in 2015. Prior to this, Lynette had made tjanpi (weaving) at home and years earlier had created a suite of prints at the art centre. She attended the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Canberra and demonstrated at the Sabbia Gallery exhibition that toured to the Australian National Botanical Gardens Gallery. In 2016 Lynette worked alongside seven other Ernabella women to create a collaborative ceramics installation for the Indigenous Ceramics Art Award at the Shepparton Art Museum and her work was acquired for the National Museum of Australia’s collection.  Lynette was a finalist for the Ravenswood Women’s Prize and the 2019 NATSIAA Telstra Awards.  
 
Lynette is part of a renowned family of Ernabella artists – her mother is Atipalku Intjalki and her sisters are Michelle Lewis and Langaliki Lewis. Her father Adrian Intjalki was an established punu artist and her brother Jeffrey also paints at the art centre. Today Lynette’s daughter, Jayanna Andy, is an emerging ceramicist at Ernabella Arts.