EUBENA NAMPITJIN (1920- 2013)

Eubena was born around 1920 at Tjinjadpa, west of Jupiter Well, Great Sandy Desert. She had little contact with non indigenous Australians until she was in her twenties, when she travelled to a mission with her first husband, where she became a senior law maker for her people.

 

Eubena began painting in 1986 when women were becoming more included in the art movement, and many of her early paintings were collaborations with her second husband Wimmitji Tjapangarti. They developed a unique style of representing their environment using the warm colours of the desert. Eubena became one of the major artists from the Balgo community.

 

Her paintings are metaphors for her landscape, and she often depicted the water holes that her family used when she was a child, the women’s dancing tracks and the sacred rocks.

 

This painting depicts two waterholes, or ‘yinta’ as they are referred to in the Kukatja language, are represented as circular shapes in the middle of the painting. These waterholes are a permanent source of water in Eubena’s country, and this particular site is known as ‘Ngunguntarra’. ‘Tali’ or sand hills common to this country fan out around the central icons.

 

Eubena is a Warlayirti Artist.