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The Rockhole Site of Umari

Artist Yuyuya Nampitjinpa (1946)

Date2008

Object number00026025

NamePainting

MediumAcrylic on Belgian linen

Dimensions1220 x 610 mm

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionRockholes are important sites for not only providing a source of water in otherwise inhospitable regions but also as spiritual and cutural places. The Papunya Tula artists explain that their paintings come from the Dreaming, where natural features like sandhills and rockholes mark out the journeys of ancestral beings. The Dreaming explains how these formations came into being. Paintings are both part of the Dreaming and the physical world. This work features the rockholes of Umari in the sandhill country east of Mount Webb in Western Australia. The holes are surrounded by sandhills (tali) and the dozens of small circles depict the desert raisin or bush tomato (kampurarrpa) collected at the site.HistoryNarrative from Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd: 'This painting depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Umari, situated in sandhill country east of Mt Webb in Western Australia. A large group of ancestral women travelled east from Umar to the rockhole site of Pinari, which is north-west of the Kintore community. As they travelled the women gathered the edible berries known as kampurarrpa or desert raisin from the small shrub Solanum centrale. These berries can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked in the coals to form a type of damper. The numerous small circles in this work depict the berries collected at this site. The larger oval shapes represent the rockholes at Umai while the grid-like shape represent the surrounding tali (sandhills). From Pinari the women continued their travels towards the east to the site of Kalipinpa, a major water dreaming site north of Sandy Blight Junction.' Those who live in the area of the tali (sandhills) of Western Australia know that it can provide a source of food and water. The site of Umari is east of the remote Mount Webb in Western Australia and Yuyuya Nampitjinpa uses this as one of her recurrent themes in her artworks. Using the colours of the area she has captured the beauty and significance of this sacred site - a fertile area within a grid of sandhills formed by ancestral beings. SignificanceThis work represents the cultural and physical landscape of the rockholes of the Umari site in Western Australia.