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Elizabeth Nyumi has had a great deal of success in recent years as have many of the major artists at Balgo, with several sell out one woman shows in Sydney to her credit. Balgo art has proved to be the most consistently painterly of all desert styles, the artists exploring surface texture and color, underpainting, the use of various size brushes in ways that contribute work strongly grounded in tradition yet stylistically pushing into new areas. Elizabeth's late 90's work was known for it's passages of sensual oversize dots painted in the manner of Emily Kngwarreye's middle period and a soft, pleasing color palate. In this painting Elizabeth has depicted the rich food gathering country belonging to her family. We see people at a camp site as they move through the country (the three white u shapes at top). There is coolamon or wooden dish full of bush foods (kidney shape, top right), particularly Pura, a bush tomato. A Wanna or digging stick (white line, top right) used for both food gathering and ceremony is also shown. The artist has also painted a waterhole and Kanytjilyi bushes (circular motifs running down the left side), which bear a sweet bush raisin. There are also Minyili bushes which grow well in sand dunes and also produce a bush tomato. |
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