Wendy Hubert

“This is my Ngurra, ancient and living. The Hills mark a boundary between Yindjibarndi and Gurruma country. I am painting the curving ancient stone that’s been worn and beaten by 3.5 billion years of heat, ice ages, great droughts and cyclonic rains; always waiting.

Remembering everything through every season. I began to draw the rocks because I found my courage and strength. It took me a long time to reach this strength.

Remembering my Yindjibarndi people coming and going: Caring for our homelands. Sixty thousand years since our creation times that we call Ngurra Nyujungammu. It was when the world was soft as clay and the sky was very low on the earth. We are still doing it, sung in our Law ceremonies. Travelling in our country, looking after it according to our Law. When the wind comes, it lifts our spirits like leaves and we hear the voices of our Old People calling us closer.

Ngurra, country; it's beautiful, it's goonmardii (plenty of food, good country). We can go fishing, we got kangaroos, turkeys, we never cook in the river, we cook up top. I paint to show people how to appreciate country, to not rubbish it, always pick your rubbish up because country will be there forever, for generation to generation.”

WENDY HUBERT