Janet Long Nakamarra Biography

DOB: 1960
Born: Willowra, NT, Central Desert Region
Language: WarlpiriPaintings: Women’s Ceremonies and Water Dreaming
Malju Dreaming – Dry Waterholes & Ngapa Dreaming – Underground Waters.

Janet paints in a blend of traditional and contemporary art style that carries the essence of her ancestral knowledge and the vibrant spirit of the Utopia central desert region.
Janet lived a traditional upbringing with her family and her Aunts May and Molly Napurulla showing her how to paint the traditional body paint designs for her Warntaparri Dreaming.

Janet is both an artist and an accomplished linguist with her people, producing bi-lingual
literature for teaching programs. She first began to paint in 1989 on small boards when the community store began to stock art supplies for the Aboriginal Artists residing there.
She uses her knowledge and talents as a linguist and translates her Dreaming’s onto canvas.  These stories tell of the mythology and religion of her people. Her paintings from the Water Dreaming stories depict the underground water soakage’s along the Lander River, important to the Aboriginal people from Warntaparri country, in the Tanami Desert region, Central Australia. These dreaming’s tell of the emu egg that was crushed up and thrown into the sky to create the stars of the Milky Way.

In her paintings traditional Dot-dot iconography and naïve meld together. Her paintings are detailed with intricate dotting flows across the canvas. She uses a topographical view of the land to connect the water soakage’s and the travelling paths that her ancestors had to make to ensure their survival and access to water. The elders are represented by the U-Shapes and the children are represented by the O-Shapes.  Each roundel represents a significant site, where ceremonies were performed, which included
chanting, singing and dancing actions to invoke the Ancestral Beings to ensure rain.  Other subjects that feature in some of Janet’s other artworks include Ngapa, Witchetty Grub, Snake, Frog, Women’s Ceremony and Seed Dreaming’s.

Janet’s paintings can be found in several well-known art collections in Australia as well as at the Australian Embassy in New York, USA, Hong Kong and China.