Biography  

Joy Nakamarra Biography

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Joy Nakamarra born around 1959 is an established artist painting her family traditional Dreamings. Joy has a very distinctive painting style with designs based on her family dreaming collecting food an important aspect of "women's business" and ceremony of the "bush tucker".

Each Dreaming include songs, ceremonial dances and rituals creating unique beliefs that the Aboriginal people live by. All stories and beliefs are related to the land and thus the land is great importance to them. The land is the keeper of the stories and must be kept safe for all time so that the stories, which are told in paintings, can be preserved. In modern representation is the sacred aspect of painting is not always completely revealed but the meaning, transmitted through symbols remains, and can be understood.

Each family owns a special area of land and must protect sacred sites representing their personal totems Dreamtime spirits. People travel long distances from all directions to participate in the initiation ceremonies and to educate the young. The journey could last days or several months and women hunt and collect food during the voyage.

Joy Nakamarra Dreamings include Collecting Bush Tomato and Tracking kangaroo, Collecting Bush Berries and Sultanas, Collecting Bush Potato Beans and Water, Collecting Bush onions, Honey Ants and Women's Dreamings.

COLLECTIONS
represented in private collectors in Australia and slowly around the world.

Source & FURTHER REFERENCES:
 "Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert - A Biographical Dictionary" by Vivien Johnson, published by Craftsman House 1994, "The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture" edited by Sylvia Kleinert and Margo Neale published by OUP 2000, “Australian Aboriginal Artist Encyclopedia” – dictionary of biographies” Kreczmanski, Janusz B & Birnberg, Margo (eds.): Aboriginal Artists: Dictionary of Biographies: Central Desert, Western Desert & Kimberley Region (JB Publishing Australia, Marleston, 2004). Brody, A. 1989 Utopia women’s Paintings: the First Works on Canvas, A summer Project, 1988-89 exhib. Cat. Heytesbury Holdings, Perth Brody, A. 1990 Utopia, a picture Story, 88 Silk Batiks from the Robert Homes a Court Gallery and gallery Collection, Heytesbury Holdings LTD Perth NATSIVAD database;  Latz, P. 1995, Bushfires & Bushtucker, IAD Press, Alice Springs

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Bush Tomatoes

Joy Nakamarra (b.1959)

Acrylic on Linen

Image Size: 43 x 72 cm
Framed size: 73 x 102 cm

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Acrylic on Linen

Image: 43 x 73cm
Framed: 73 x 103 cm

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NOTES

• Aboriginal people inherit stories called “dreaming”.  Each story may include songs, ceremonial dances and rituals creating unique beliefs that the Aboriginal people live by. All stories and beliefs are related to the land and thus the land is great importance to them. The land is the keeper of the stories and must be kept safe for all time so that the stories, which are told in paintings, can be preserved. In modern representation is the sacred aspect of painting is not always completely revealed but the meaning, transmitted through symbols remains, and can be understood.

• Aboriginal people believe that the Universe was created by spirits (mystical beings) setting the blueprint for all time the way human may govern their conduct.

• The spirits gathered their food, dug for water, performing ceremonies as the Aboriginal do it today but the landscape stay unchanged.

• During the Creation Time spirits shaped all the landscape; hills and water holes and given humans all the sacred laws. That time was known as “Dreamtime” and it came to the end and their ancestor changed into landscape, they turn into a rock or mountain range, an isolated hill, river or even trees arose to mark the place.

• Aboriginal people look upon these spirits creators as ancestors. Aboriginal believe in an existing connection to their ancestor spirit and to the land. They are spiritual biological beings appreciative of the fragility of the nature and making an effort to live in harmony with the environment. Since every Aboriginal descent of the mythical beings of the “Dreamtime” each person is linked by myth and tribal relationship with the landscape, the rocks and watercourses, and everything else in his tribal country.

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