Elizabeth Nyumi Nungurrayi

This painting depicts the country of Elizabeth’s father. This country is known as Parwalla and is located far to the south of Balgo in the Great Sandy Desert, west of the community of Kiwirrkurra. The landscape of the area is dominated by tali, or sand dunes. The Parwalla area is a swampy area, filling a huge area with water after the wet season rain. These wet season rains result in an abundance of good bush tucker. The majority of the painting shows the different bush foods, including kantjili, or bush raisin, and minyili. Women, the U shapes, with their wana (digging sticks) and coolamons are also depicted. The white colour, which dominates the painting represents the spinifex which grows strong and seeds after the wet season rains. These seeds are white in colour, and grow so thickly they obscure the ground and other plants below.