Pirlinyanu Dreaming, 2006 by Julie Nangala Robertson, 198x122cm Cat 9283JR

With the magnificence in this painting, one can appreciate why Julie was awarded Best Painting category in the Telstra Aboriginal Art Award in August 2023.

Using a distinctive monochromatic palette to represent arid country and water, Julie has created a minimalist painting of country from an aerial perspective, a work that can be viewed in different orientations.

This is an important part of the Water Dreaming ( Ngapa Jukurrpa ) - a rocky outcrop known as Pirlinyanu, in the Tanami Desert, west of Yuendumu and towards the Western Australia border. When journeying to this "country", it is rarely a featureless landscape and from Pirlinyanu, the top of this site, you can see for miles and miles.

It has significant waterholes and plentiful bush tucker. If you know which rocks to move you always have access to fresh water in the deep natural occurring wells of Pirlinyanu. Without this knowledge one could imagine there was no water in this desert landscape.

The eldest of the five daughters of Dorothy Napangardi Robinson, Julie has recently changed the spelling of her surname to Robertson, feeling that her father, Windy, had misspelt it as Julie's other relatives in Yuendumu are all Robertson. Windy had two wives, Rene Robinson and Dorothy Robinson.