Kumantjayi Nangala

Tilau paints the story of the great Water Dreaming site of Mikantji which she inherited from her father. Tilau is a senior law woman. Her deeply felt knowledge of country and ceremony empowers her bold lyrical and expressive paintings depicting the topography of hills and creeks that create the feeling of flowing water. Mikantji is west of the remote Aboriginal community of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. The custodians of this sacred place are the Nangala and Nampitjimpa women and their brothers, the Tjangala and Tjampitjimpa men. The painting tells how the women perform ceremonies or inma celebrating the creation of the Mikantji site by the storm ancestors. Tilau has painted kungka (women, represented by U shapes), ngati (waterholes, represented by circles), caru (creeks, represented by the long sinuous lines), puuli (hills, represented by the short curved lines). Tilau says her auntie taught her culture and stories but she developed her own ideas on how to paint it. She paints "so the children can watch me paint and learn, so I can pass on my Dreaming and stories to my grandchildren”. If present, the U shapes are women, the circles are waterholes, the long sinuous lines are creeks, and the short curved lines are puuli or hills.