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Seven Sister's Dreaming and My Grandmother's Country

GABRIELLA POSSUM NUNGURRAYI

Depicting two of Gabriella Possum’s dreaming, this piece tells the story of both sky and land. The upper part of the artwork details tells the creation story of the sky and the ancient myth of the Milky Way and the Seven Sisters (Pleiades). This dreaming was inherited by Gabriella from her mother and grandmother and given to Gabriella by her father. This story takes place at ‘twenty mile’ located near Napperby Creek in the Northern Territory. The Seven Sisters travelled over a vast expanse of country, until they realised that they were being followed by a man called Wati-Nyiru (who was a Tjakamarra man). With little hope of relief, the seven sisters escaped through a fire at Kurlunyalimpa to the Milky Way where they became the stars of the Pleiades in the Constellation Taurus. There they are safe and at rest and watch out over all the women on earth. Wati-Nyiru followed them to the heavens, and become the star Orion, unable to get near them as they move across the night sky. Gabriella depicts the cloud formations in front of the Milky Way in the night sky. The seven concentric circles represent the seven sisters while the lone star represents Orion (the Tjakamarra man) reforming the constellation of Pleiades. The lower part of the artwork is an aerial perspective of Gabriella’s Grandmother’s Country near Napperby, Northern Territory, Australia. A songline passed down to her by her paternal Grandmother, Long Rose Nungala and the other senior women who taught her in her formative years of a place that is to culturally important to the artist and her ancestry that is abundant with vegetation, bush food and water. This work is an abstract aerial landscape depicting motifs of natural resources such as bush food and sources of water on her country using traditional iconography. Women are shown gathering food, depicted by the "U" shapes throughout the work. Spinifex grasses are scattered through the landscape alongside bush foods and native plants used for bush medicine. Concentric circle symbols identify campfire and ceremony sites. This painting provides an excellent overview of a culturally important sites where the women gather for ceremony and engage in ritual song and dance.
ID: KFA25153

Year:

Dimensions: 1055 x 2027 mm

Medium: Synthetic Polymer Paints on Canvas

Stretching Status: Stretched

$8,750.00 AUD

We deliver artworks both rolled in a tube (unstretched) and ready to hang (stretched). We offer complimentary delivery on unstretched works within Australia. All other delivery methods will be quoted after purchase.

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