Elizabeth Nyumi Pintupi, 1947-2019

Nyumi was one of the most famous of the second generation of artists of Warlayirti Artists of Balgo. She was born around 1947 and was a painter, dancer and teacher of traditional dance and song from a family of artists. She lived at Kururrungku (Billiluna), an outlying community from Balgo. Nyumi's mother belonged to the country of Nynmi (Jupiter Well) near Kiwirrkurra on the Pintupi side. Tragically Nyumi's mothers died quite young from a dingo bite at the Kanari soak water close to Jupiter Well. Her father was from Alyarra in the region of Natajarra.
Nyumi lived a nomadic existence with her family group on the Canning Stock Route before walking into Old Mission with her father after her mother had died. Here she was given clothes and taken to Billiluna and trained as a house worker, cleaning the floors with rags, washing dishes and raking the grounds. She subsequently traveled to many station houses around the region working for the wives of the station owners. As a young girl travelling with her older brothers, Brandy and Patrick Tjungurrayi, she encountered a helicopter at Natawalu in 1957. It was the first time Nyumi had seen white men.
Nyumi married a man by the name of Palmer Gordon who became a senior law man of the Billiluna community. Both Nyumi and Palmer taught culture to the children at the school ensuring the traditional dances and songs are kept alive. Nyumi advised the
nursing staff at the health clinic about traditional bush medicines and was also
knowledgeable about carving coolamons and digging sticks.
Nyumi's paintings are mainly concerned with the country of abundant bush food belonging to her family. In her maturity as a painter she initially worked with a thick brush, covering the canvas in emanating lines in muted tones. Her style then developed to using a multitude of dotting to build up fields of texture but retained her signature motifs of small camps, coolamons and bush tucker trees and scrubs. Nyumi travelled to the Netherlands and to Sydney, Perth, Darwin and Alice Springs for exhibitions of her work which is in the collections of the NGV, AGNSW, AGSA and most other Australian public collections.
She was a vibrant and active member in the community being a strong law and culture woman. Nyumi passed away in 2019.