MNB339 Oblong Cushion Cover Wool

Mitjili Napurrula is renowned for her distinctive and instantly recognisable style. Her work often depicts the Watiya Tjuta (desert oak trees), part of her father’s Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) from Ilyingaungau Country in the Gibson Desert.

This cultural knowledge was passed to Mitjili by her mother, Tjunkayi Napaltjarri, through traditional sand drawings during storytelling. Mitjili recalls:
“After I got married, my mother taught me my father’s Tjukurrpa in the sand — that’s what I’m painting on the canvas.”

Her paintings are a women’s interpretation of this powerful ancestral story, honouring both familial and cultural lineage.