Kalipinypa (Water Dreaming)

This painting depicts Narlie’s Water Dreaming site at Kalipinypa, North-east of Kintore. The painting tells the story of the rain and hail making ceremony for the site of Kalipinypa. Ancestral forces are invoked to bring on a powerful storm with lightning, thunderclouds and rain sending a deluge to rejuvenate the earth, filling the rock holes, clay pans and creeks and creating new life and growth upon the land and the return of the white bird. Today the Nakamarra, Tjakamarra, Napurrula and Tjupurrula men and women are the custodians of this important Water Dreaming site and celebrate its stories in the ceremonies.Narlie says that the dots represent the raindrops and hail stones that fell on the sand hills during the great ancestral storm.

This artwork may be displayed any orientation.

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Narlie Nakamarra was born in Haasts Bluff in 1948. She is the eldest daughter of renowned Papunya Tula artist Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula and his first wife Merewenjina Napanangka. Her sister Maggie born in 1951, later married one of the youngest of the founding group of painters at Papunya David Corby Tjapaltjarri. After her mother, Merewenjina's death, her father, Johnny married Gladys (Yawintji) Napanangka and Narlie grew up with their six children: sons Michael and Dennis, and daughters Emma, Candy, Minnie, another who passed away. Narlie worked for fifteen years in the Papunya pre-school with Martha McDonald before she left and began painting. She described herself as self-taught. She learnt the stories of Kalipinypa which she mostly paints from her father, although she represents this famous subject in her own way. Narlie is also an accomplished weaver of baskets and maker of seed necklaces. She enjoys painting with other family members at the Papunya Tjupi Art Centre.