"Water Dreaming "
152 x 122cm
Acrylic on linen
Ref No: SR359907
The site depicted in this painting is Puyurru, west of Yuendumu. In th usually dry creek beds are the water soakages or naturally occuring wells. The Dreaming tells how two Jangala men, which were rainmakers, sang the rain, unleashing a giant storm The storm travelled across the country with lightening striking the land. This storm met up with another storm from Wapurtali, to the west. It was then picked up by a bird and carried further west until the load became too heavy for the bird to carry and it dropped the storm at Purlungyanu. This created a giant water soakage. At Puyurru the bird dug up a giant snake Warayarra (the Rainbow Serpent) and the snake carried water with it to create the large lake at Jillyumpa.
In this painting Shorty has used the long, straight lines to represent the flood waters running through the landscape. The small cicles are used to represent water soakages and the smaller horizontal lines are the clouds.
Shorty Jangala Robertson was born at Jila (Chilla Well), a large soakage and claypan north-west of Yuendumu, circa the 1930’s. He lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle with his parents, older brother and extended Warlpiri family. Together they travelled vast distances across desert country and during his youth Shorty had virtually no contact with white men. After his father passed away he and his mother moved to Yuendumu.
During World War II, the army took people from Yuendumu to the other Warlpiri settlement at Lajamanu. Shorty was taken and separated from his mother however she came to get him and together, on foot, they travelled hundreds of miles back to Jila.
Drought, food shortage and lack of medical supplies forced Shorty and his family back to Yuendumu from time to time. He finally settled there in 1967 after the Australian Citizen Referendum.