Kapi Tjukurrpa – Kalipinypa

$4,500.00

This painting depicts Candy Nelson Nakamarra’s Kapi (Water) Tjukurrpa site at Kalipinypa, north-east of Walungurru (Kintore). The painting tells the story of the rain and hail making ceremony for the site of Kalipinypa. Ancestral forces are invoked to bring on a powerful storm with lightning, thunderclouds and rain sending a deluge to rejuvenate the earth, filling the rock holes, claypans and creeks and creating new life and growth upon the land. Today the Nakamarra, Tjakamarra, Napurrula and Tjupurrula men and women are the custodians of this important Kapi Tjukurrpa site and celebrate its stories in the ceremonies.

Candy Nelson Nakamarra was born in Yuendumu, daughter to renowned Papunya Tula artist Johnny Warangkula, who taught his children how to paint whilst passing down family stories. They all paint the Kalipinypa Kapi (Water) Tjukurrpa, of the rain and hail making ceremony, which Candy continues to explore and reinvent. Candy says her paintings, “look as if they are breathing, with the drawing elements popping out of the canvas’’. Candy represents tali (sandhills) and running water in her backgrounds, and uses dotting to represent hailstorms and rain. Through shapes and motifs, she represents the waterholes, running water, bush tucker, water birds and flowers present after a big storm and the wanampi (water snake) which lives under the waterhole.