Martuwarra (The Artist's Mother's Country)

This brilliantly colored canvas is an important work by accomplished Aboriginal artist Ena Gimme Nungurrayi, a leading exponent of the art movement established at Balgo. She was born in Kaliyangku, her father's country, on the western edge of the Tanami Desert in the far north of Western Australia. Her mother was the leading Balgo artist, Eubena Yupinya Nampitjin - a healer and highly respected keeper of customary knowledge.

The work combines a series of multi-colored oval and circular shapes connected by a network of stippled patterns. Nungurrayi’s work is part of a significant body of work produced by women at Balgo. Originally established as a Catholic Mission in 1939, it was situated on the western edge of the Tanami Desert in the far north of Western Australia. The settlement brought together a culturally diverse and highly mobile population with tribal groups that spoke different languages and enacted a range of customary practice which was a catalyst for the eruption of creative expression that evolved in the community. The Balgo art movement gained momentum when local men painted large calico cloth banners for decorative use in the church. Between 1982 and 1984, Aboriginal women also began to participate in the painting classes and were introduced to vivid acrylics in pinks, greens, blues and yellows which they began to use as a means to accentuate more conventional neutral and ochre tones. These innovations contributed to the development of the gestural style and mixed stroke work of Ena Gimme Nungurrayi. The title of this painting refers to the artist’s mother’s country and the circular motifs focus on two specific waterholes in that homeland. This is a particularly accomplished example of the artist’s dynamic use of vivid colors which are worked and overlaid to create a highly impastoed texture that conveys her own highly original interpretation of central desert motifs.