About this artwork
Jessica Veronica Brown has painted in the way of her grandmother Anmanari Brown in this work depicting the very sacred women’s’ site of Kuru Ala. Kuru Ala is a site located between Tjuntjuntjara, Papulankutja (Blackstone) and Irrunytju (Wingellina) on the northern boundary of Spinifex Lands. It is dramatic breakaway country of red granite hills. It is here that Wati Nyiiru caught the eldest sister and injured her. Her siblings carried her into the cave for healing before fleeing to Minyma Nyanpi a rock hole to the west.
Kungkarangkalpa is a major Western Desert Tjukurpa also known as the Seven Sisters). Tjukurpa is the Pitjantjatjara concept for describing the formative creation where ancestral beings create the world. These beings are Anangu ancestors, who can take the form of people, plants or animals. They traverse the country; forming the world we live in, creating the waterholes, the trees, the clay pans, the rocky outcrops, the sand hills and the Spinifex plains. These land formations are the physical manifestation of the creation energy and tangible evidence that this Tjukurpa is true. This Tjukurpa of the Seven Sisters is an epic songline in the Western Desert and tells the story of many women traveling throughout the desert hunting and carrying out ritual obligations all the while being pursued by a cheeky old man in pursuit of a wife. Nyiru the man, is capable of changing form and does this on occasion in order to trick the women. Many parts of the story are secret and involve a sexual element. Only the public details of this story are allowed to be put down in paint.
About Jessica Veronica Brown
Jessica Veronica Brown's traditional homelands are close to the tri-state border region in the Western Desert at the intersection of WA, SA and NT. Family connections ties her to country around Blackstone (Papulankutja), Wingellina (Irrunytju) and Tjuntjuntjara. Although a Pitjantjatjara woman with familiar ties to the desert she was born in Kalgoorlie hospital in 1981 while her mother was living with relatives at the Kurrawang Mission, originally established as a ‘native reserve’ in 1952 by the Gospel Brethren (later known as Christian Brethren). In the 1980s, it was known locally as the Kurrawang Aboriginal Christian Centre and by 1984 was a self-managed Aboriginal community with a parent-directed school on the site. Veronica and her mother later returned to their traditional homelands and settled in Irrunytju Community. Veronica’s grandmother Anmanari Brown was one of a group of artists who established Irrunytju Arts in the early 2000’s paving the way for the younger generations to develop artistic careers. Like Anmanari, Veronica often paints country around Kuru Ala, an important women’s site belonging to the Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters) songline. In her work traditional desert motifs are used to translate the Tjukurpa into visual works. Veronica is one of the new group of painters working with the Spinifex Arts Project.
