The circles in the middle are the sites of my grandfather, my mother and my great grandfather. The circles, swirling around and around and around is the lighting and the water moving, like a storm.
Puuni Brown Nungarrayi (b. 1979) is of the Luritja language group and grew up watching her mother and prominent Western Desert artist, Isobel Gorey, paint. Reinventing and reimagining her mother’s Kapi Tjukurrpa (Water Dreaming), she has crafted a visual language distinctly her own, cultivating and nurturing one of the most significant art movements in Australian history.
Kapi Tjukurrpa (Water Dreaming) is a knowledge form passed down through generations, telling stories of water sources; a billabong, watering hole, stream or river – how to find them, replenish them and sustain them. Circular forms and motifs to represent these different forms of water have become a constant within Papunya painting, reoccurring again and again to emphasise the necessity and importance of water to sustain and nurture life amongst the dry red desert. In a broader sense the concentric circles allude, both directly and indirectly, to an all encompassing life cycle – everything is eternal.
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Puuni Brown Nungarrayi, 2023, Papunya Tjupi, Alice Springs. Image courtesy of the Artist and Papunya Tjupi Arts, Alice Springs, Australia, Sydney.
