Eunice Napanangka – Kuruyultu II 40 cm

Fabric: printed Tencel/linen (front) and unprinted cotton (back)
Color: the base cloth is natural and the ink is an ombre of light pink to rose. The back of the cushion is black.

Purchasing items made from hand-printed fabric supports Aboriginal artists (who get a royalty) and also creates a livelihood for the printers and sewers.
Please note that each cushion is unique and the placement of the design is different and wonderful on each item. The fabric was made into cushion covers by Mrs Pichreay our fair trade partner in Cambodia.
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The artist: Eunice Napanangka Jack

Eunice is an acclaimed Luritja, Ngaanyatjarra and Pintupi artist; born in 1940 at Lupul in the Sir Frederick Ranges. When Eunice was a little girl shortages of food forced her family east towards the ration stations being set up in central Australia. She remembers the travels with her family very vividly and refers to it as when her mother carried her piggy back all the way from Western Australia to Haasts Bluff. An important woman in her community, Eunice is well known for her hunting skills, dancing and traditional law knowledge. Eunice started painting with the opening of the Ikuntji Women’s Centre in August of 1992, and from 1993 to today has exhibited widely around Australia and the world. Her father Tutuma Tjapangarti was one of the original Papunya Tula painters, and during the 1970s she worked with her husband Gideon Tjupurrula Jack who was painting at Papunya Tula. Eunice’s paintings are interpretations of her country near Lake Mackay. She uses layers of colour to build up a vision of the bush flowers and grasses. Amongst this landscape Eunice’s personal stories are told, either of the travelling of her Tjukurrpa -the Bilby- or the people who once lived in the area.

Design:

In this design Eunice depicts her father’s Tjukurrpa (Dreaming). It shows the country at Kuruyultu, near Tjukurrla in Western Australia. “This is my country. I can’t remember how it all happened, because it happened before I was born. I have a scar on my back from it. My grandfather speared a wallaby at Kuruyultu. That night he ate that wallaby. At the same time my mother could feel me moving inside her. She was heavily pregnant with me. That next morning, after my grandfather had speared the wallaby, killed it and eaten it, I was born.

I was born at Kuruyultu, near the Rockhole there… We left that place, Kuruyultu. My father, my mother, my big sister and my father’s brother, we all left together and went to Haasts Bluff. I grew up in Haasts Bluff. I have been back to Kuruyultu for visits but I never lived there again in my country. I think about it every day.

Only my father knows all the stories for that country and he painted them too… all the men’s stories. I know the story of the wallaby mother and daughter which left me with a birthmark. That’s what I paint: the wallaby mother and daughter.”

Eunice is a member of Ikuntji Artists, Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory, Australia

Fabric lengths in this design are also available from our store.