Women Dreaming

In 1982, Women Dreaming became the first Western Desert painting by a woman artist to be acquired by an art museum. The distinctive circular work had been painted earlier that year by Anmatyerre artist Daisy Leura Nakamarra. It depicts the important site of Illpilli, 150 kilometres west of Papunya, where a group of women once camped in search of edible berries and witchetty grubs. Dots and lines in ochre, yellow and brown tones fill Nakamarra’s geometrical work. Depicted as crescent forms are the seated women who tilled the earth with digging sticks, which Nakamarra renders as straight lines. Centred among the women are their oval-shaped bowls and surrounding them are the footsteps showing their journey across the varying terrains of red sandhills and yellow spinifex grasses.

As a senior law woman, Nakamarra was a custodian of profound cultural knowledge, although a personal edict guided her to paint only secular women’s themes and important food sources. She was one of the first women to paint officially at Papunya Tula Artists and was instrumental in paving the way for the large number of women who began painting in the mid-1990s.

Gloria Strzelecki, Associate Curator of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art