"This dreaming tells of the hunt for witchetty grubs. Witchetty grubs are found all over our country. They are found in the ground and in tree trunks. The women dig them out and place them in their coolamons. When they return to camp they cook them in the coals of the fire." (Warnayayka Art Centre)
Lily Hargraves Nungarrayi (1930 - 2019) was one of the old desert walkers, born in the Tanami Desert in her country near Jilla Well (Chilla Well). When, in 1950, the Warlpiri population at Yuendemu had outgrown the settlement’s housing capabilities, Nungarrayi moved to the settlement of Lajamanu along with 1000 others. A tiny, very isolated point in the north of the Warlpiri estate, ten hour’s drive south of Darwin and eight hours north-west of Alice Springs. Here, Nungarrayi resided until her death in 2019.
Lily Yirdingali Jurrah Hargraves Nungarrayi belongs among the ranks of Australia’s greatest Indigenous artists. Nungarrayi was ferocious, painting against the deliberate erasure of her culture, she was among the last in possession of some key aspects of Warlpiri sacred knowledge.
Every painting in Nungurray’s legacy seems to contain an earnest thought that a return to some dignified form of traditional life may be possible. Her painting practice was an effort toward recording a Warlpiri history that was at risk of erasure, for a Warlpiri people that, before colonisation, had had no need for a method to document its past.
