Nyunmanu – mangarri tjuṯa, pilkaṯi anta rumiya (all the bush food and the snake and goanna)

$4,900.00

Doris Nungarrayi Bush has painted a plentiful memory from her past in the early days when she was learning from her mother out at Wilura and Nyunmanu. Nyunmanu is a Dreaming site just to the south-east of the remote Aboriginal community of Walungurru (Kintore) in the Northern Territory. Doris talks of her and her mother handling different types of mangarri (food). As Doris talks about these memories, she enacts the handling and eating of mai (food) and drinking kapi (water). Doris speaks of breaking open pura (bush tomatoes) to eat the flesh, and collecting and eating ilyuru (a sweet cotton-candy-like bush food). Doris talks of different tools to do this, like wana (digging sticks) and of other parts of the fruitful landscape such as watiya (trees). Now, when Doris sits in Papunya to paint, she sits under a large watiya (tree). She remembers that this same type of watiya was at Nyunmanu, and she and her mother would sit under it. Doris recalls the whole family sitting around nikiti way (without clothes) and without any Western tools. Doris explains, ‘Billycan wiya! Blanket wiya! Just running around!’

Doris Bush was born in Ikuntji (Haasts Bluff) and was married to the late George Bush Tjangala, one of Papunya Tula Artists’ original shareholders. In the mid 1980’s the family went to live on an outstation at Nyunmanu in Doris’ mother’s country towards the WA/NT border. Doris continues to paint Nyunmanu and the traditional Dingo Tjukurrpa of this place. Doris also paints vivid memories, stories and dreams from her life, with her work often telling happy stories from her early days in Ikuntji, eating, hunting and swimming with her friends and family in the bush. Doris’ works embody her nature of a true storyteller with her expressive style, bold use of colour and recognisable motifs.

Finalist in the Wynne Prize at the AGNSW (2023), National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (2020, 2021, 2022), Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize (2019) and shortlisted in the Alice Art Prize (2018), Doris’ work is held in the Artbank collection, Macquarie Bank collection, University of Western Sydney collection, the Hassall collection, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Doris was the winner of the 2023 Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.