Ngayuku ngura

$5,720.00

Ngayuku ngura means ‘my place’. Samuel Miller uses an extensive palette of colours to paint the country surrounding Kalka and Pipalyatjara. His paintings feature the various land formations from that area – rockholes, creeks and hills. His land is a sacred men’s rockhole, so sacred that the name is not allowed to be written down or spoken.

Samuel Miller was born at Ernabella Mission. When Samuel’s mother passed away, his father’s second wife, Molly Nampitjin Miller, cared for him. Molly is a founding director of Ninuku Arts. When growing up, Samuel moved between Amata and Pipalyatjara, but he now resides in Kalka with Molly and the rest of her family. A core member of Ninuku Arts, Samuel has painted here daily for over a decade. His canvases depict the traditional iconography of his land, which lies to the east of Pipalyatjara – camps, rockholes, creeks and hills, all immersed in Tjukurpa. Samuel’s paintings are mesmerising, and he makes extensive use of vibrant, radiating colours, which are largely drawn from the flowers in his country, before the buffel grass came.