Pinari

This painting relates to the soakage site of Pinari, north-west of the Kintore Community. This is the artist’s mother’s Country. A group of ancestral women once gathered at this site after travelling from further west to perform the dances and sing the songs associated with the area. The women also spun hair-string for making nyimparra (hair-string skirts), which are worn by both men and women during ceremonies. The nyimparra are represented in the painting by the long straight line with smaller adjoining lines. Upon completion of the ceremonies the women continued their travels gathering large quantities of the edible fruit known as pura (also known in Pintupi as pintalypa), or bush tomato, from the small shrub Solanum chippendalei. This fruit is the size of a small apricot and, after the seeds have been removed, can be stored for long periods by halving the fruit and skewering them onto a stick.

 

Aileen Napurrula was born in Papunya in 1966. She is the daughter of revered Papunya Tula artist Wintjiya Napaltjarri and Toba Tjakamarra, who was also the father of Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula. Aileen currently lives and works in Walungurru (Kintore), regularly painting the sites of her mother’s Country, including Pinari to the east of Kiwirrkura and Watanuma north-west of Kintore.