Lot 100

Purchased from and painted at Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs with the knowledge and support of Warlukurlangu Arts, Yuendumu (accompanied by a copy of the certificate of authenticity)
Private collection, Melbourne

"This significant painting depicts a major women's ceremonial site known as Mina Mina, located near Lake Mackay in the Tanami Desert, north of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. During the Jukurrpa (Dreaming) Ancestral women of the Napangardi and Napanangka sub-section groups (aunt / niece relationship, in which knowledge is passed from one to the other) gathered to collect ceremonial digging sticks (karlungu) that had emerged from the ground. They then proceeded east, performing rituals of song and dance, to the place known as Jankinyi. A large belt of trees (Casuarina Decaisneana) now stand where these sacred digging sticks once were.

Mina Mina is an area dominated by two large clay pans, which Judy has represented here by the sets of wavy lines running along the edge of the painting. The straighter lines joined by roundels depicts sandhills, which are also part of the geographical formations found at Mina Mina. The wavy lines through the centre symbolise the snake vine that is spun into rope for ceremony and to carry their wooden carry bowls (coolamons). The Napangardi and Napanangka women carrying their digging sticks are represented by the U-shapes and the small, straight lines while around them are fresh water soakage holes as well as wooden bowls used for carrying, called coolamons, both depicted by the roundels."

As stated on the Gallery Gondwana certificate of authenticity

© Judy Napangardi Watson/Copyright Agency, 2026