Looking for ngkurlpa (Bush tobacco)

$6,500.00

That’s me looking for ngkurlpa (bush tobacco). Looking out across the vast hills, picking out all the ngkurlpa bushes. I had a huge bag, a big garbage bag, and was dragging it behind me, filling it with all the bush tobacco leaves. It gets so hot out in the bright sun, and the bag was getting so full, so heavy! I was getting tired. My husband Freddie was back at camp, making a fire and putting the billy on it for a cup of tea. He was cooking kangaroo tail in the coals. When I came back to camp, he was sitting there smoking a rollie and drinking a cuppa, with nice roo tail ready for lunch. Freddie, he couldn’t believe how much ngkurlpa I found! Whole bag full.

Rona Rubuntja was born in 1970 and is the niece of famous watercolourist and elder Wenten Rubuntja. She joined the Hermannsburg Potters in 1998 and has since established herself as one of the most prominent senior artists of the group, participating in exhibitions across Australia and internationally, including her first solo exhibition, Down the Road from Ntaria, which opened at Sabbia Gallery in Sydney in November 2022.

Rona’s style is distinctive, humorous and imaginative, and her storytelling ability comes across most strongly in her figurative work. In January 2024 Rona was invited to exhibit, present and demonstrate her work at the Indian Ceramics Triennale in New Delhi, India. Rona was a finalist in the 2023 King & Wood Malleson’s First Nations Art Award for her collaboration with Top End artist Ray Mudjandi, Black Speed. Rona’s work was shortlisted for the Telstra NATSIAA’s in 2021. Her work was also shortlisted in The Design Files Awards for 2021. Rona’s work was selected for the Shepparton Art Museum Indigenous Ceramic Art Award three times, winning second place in 2008 for her work Palm Valley Muster. Rona exhibited in the highly acclaimed exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria Our Land is Alive: Hermannsburg Potters for Kids in 2015/2016.