Suzanne O’Connell Gallery presents Ursula Napangardi Marks’s “Warnayaka Jukurrpa” solo exhibition, in conjunction with Warnayaka Art and Culture.
Ursula Napangardi is a younger artist following in the traditions of the Warlpiri people, who now live in small towns in the Tanami Desert. Napangardi’s art can be complex or very simple. Her art depicts Jukurrpa (Dreaming stories, containing information about the creation of the landscape, knowledge of resources and Warlpiri law) or an aspect of Jukurrpa.
The exhibition and dreaming tells the story and of generations of the Warnayaka people gathering and cooking of the sweet tasting bush potato. Guided by the 2 pointer stars of the Southern Cross through a landscape where the trees are green all year round. The women search for the flowering trees, that tell them the potato are ready to dig for. Looking for long, thin cracks along the ground, made from the vines of the potato plant. The women dig where the cracks are. The potatoes are deep in the ground, digging through the white and coloured layers of the earth find the Bush Potato or Yams, sometimes more than one meter deep. This is represented in her story and works through the dominant use of white, and the layering techniques of using colour, and a few bold confident lines of sacred marks. Her subjects were handed down to her from her grandparents and she is now a custodian of them.
She is a lady who has been in the most important ceremonies for Warlpiri women, including her sons' and nephews' ceremonies. Her art is informed not only by her personal cultural history, but also by working closely for the last 13 years with Warnayaka Artists such as Lily Nungarrayi Hargraves, Kitty Napanangka Simon and Rosie & Molly Napurrurla Tasman, and from knowing the works of Lorna Napurrurla Fencer.
Ursula's works have been exhibited in Darwin, Sydney and Brisbane galleries as well as in America. In 2020 they were featured at the enormously successful DAAF online event and then at the Sydney Contemporary. Because of COVID this was also an online event.
Warnayaka Art is Warlpiri owned. It is in Lajamanu in the Northern Territory 900kms south of Darwin and 900kms north of Alice Springs in the Tanami Desert. The staff and artists are nearly all Warlpiri who live in Lajamanu. The older artists remember meeting white people for the first time. Their children and grandchildren now run the art centre. They learn their grandparents’ culture by working with artworks at Warnayaka Art. The artists express the significance of being Warlpiri through art. This preserves language, social structure, and law. This heritage is passed through generations. The art works they make talk about their lands and the lands ecology and people’s place in that ecology as well as trace roads that go through their vast territory. For Warlpiri, the art works invoke timeless memories of creation, people, events, food and special places. Great art is created at Warnayaka Art, and results in prosperity from art sales and employment opportunities.
