Artists

This artwork depicts the country known as Parwalla, dominated by tali (sand hills). This is her father’s country, located far to the south of Balgo in the Great Sandy Desert, west of Kiwirrkurra. Parwalla is a swampy area that fills with water during the wet season that results in an abundance of bush foods. Nyumi’s paints the abundant bush food growing there, that include kantjilyi (bush raisin), pura (bush tomato) and minyili (seed). Women are shown as the U shapes, with their wana (digging sticks) and coolamons gathering the foods are also depicted. White areas represent the spinifex that grows and set seeds.

Nyumi commenced painting in 1987 and began to emerge as a leading artist in the late 1990s. Her paintings are mainly concerned with the abundance of bush food in country belonging to her family. She would work with a thick brush, covering the canvas in fluid emanating lines of muted tones. She has developed a personal style of thick impasto dotting that build up fields of texture.