Crossing Cultures

The Owen and Wagner Collection of Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Art at the Hood Museum of Art

Walangkura Napanangka, Pintupi, born about 1945

Belonging to the Pintupi people of the Western Desert, Walangkura Napanangka has depicted the customary designs associated with the rockhole site of Lupul, which is represented by overlapping concentric circles. The background is composed entirely of textured dotting that suggests the windblown tali (sandhills) that dominant the region. In the Ancestral Period, a group of women gathered at this site to make hair string skirts and perform the dances and songs associated with it. The painting also references the edible berries known as kampurarrpa, or desert raisins, that the women collected and prepared, demonstrating the women's botanical knowledge of this named landscape and the joy of being connected to it.