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Yulyurlu : Lorna Fencer Napurrurla

by Margie West

A profile of artist Yulyurlu Lorna Fencer Napurrurla, featuring her Yam Dreaming paintings and her contribution to the Central Desert art movement. Includes essays by Barbara Ambjerg Pedersen, Chips Mackinolty, and Christine Nicholls.

Accession 9781743050095 ISBN 9781743050095 Publisher Wakefield Press

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spine_text: Yulyurlu LORNA FENCER NAPURRURLA Wakefield Press

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Yulyurlu : Lorna Fencer Napurrurla

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Topics and Themes

1. **Indigenous Australian Art & the Central Desert Art Movement**
Yulyurlu was a pioneering figure in the Central Desert art movement, emerging as one of the most original and sought-after Warlpiri artists from Lajamanu. The book profiles her bold, expressive acrylic paintings and situates her work as a major transitional moment in the history of the contemporary Indigenous art movement.

Connect to books about: Aboriginal art history, Central Desert painting, acrylic art movements, Papunya Tula, Indigenous Australian visual culture.

2. **Dreamtime, Ancestral Storytelling & Jukurrpa**
At the heart of Yulyurlu's life and work was the Yam Dreaming complex — Big Yam, Little Yam, and Caterpillar — rooted in her country at Yumurrpa in the Tanami Desert. She also inherited the right to paint the Marlujarra Jukurrpa (Two Kangaroos Dreaming) from her father, and her paintings were a continual retelling of these ancestral stories.

Connect to books about: Dreamtime mythology, Jukurrpa and songlines, Indigenous cosmology, sacred knowledge and storytelling traditions.

3. **Warlpiri Culture & Language**
Yulyurlu was a Warlpiri woman, and the book is deeply embedded in Warlpiri cultural life at Lajamanu — a remote settlement where language, ceremony, and community life intersect. The editor, Margie West, herself worked at Lajamanu first as a linguist and then as principal of the bilingual Warlpiri school.

Connect to books about: Warlpiri language and culture, bilingual education in remote Australia, linguistic anthropology of Central Australia.

4. **Women Artists & Artistic Identity**
Yulyurlu developed a fiercely independent and highly personal artistic style, remaining devoted to her art even to the point of self-isolation. Her story is one of artistic self-determination: she lived her art rather than merely practising it, and her work is inseparable from her identity and ancestral obligations.

Connect to books about: women artists, outsider and self-taught art, artistic biography, identity and creative practice.

5. **Country, Place & Land Connection**
Yulyurlu's work was anchored to a specific place — her country at Yumurrpa in the Tanami Desert — and her paintings were ongoing explorations of the landscape and its spiritual geography. Despite a disrupted life, she retained a passionate attachment to her country and her people's Dreamings.

Connect to books about: land rights and country in Indigenous Australia, place-based identity, environmental humanities, the Tanami Desert.

6. **Colonialism, Forced Removal & Trauma**
Yulyurlu's life was marked by the profound disruptions of colonial policy. She lost eight of her ten children, including one daughter taken by Native Welfare and never seen again. Like many desert people in mining regions, she endured displacement, tragedy, and exploitation throughout her life.

Connect to books about: the Stolen Generations, colonialism in Australia, Aboriginal welfare policy, intergenerational trauma, survival and resilience.

7. **Art as Cultural Preservation & Resistance**
Despite exploitation and hardship, Yulyurlu used painting as a means of preserving and transmitting cultural knowledge. Her artwork was both a personal expression and an act of cultural continuity — a way of keeping Dreaming stories alive for future generations.

Connect to books about: art as resistance, cultural survival, decolonising art practice, Indigenous intellectual property and cultural heritage.

8. **Biography, Monograph & Art Curation**
The book is a scholarly yet accessible monograph combining biographical essays, curatorial analysis, and full-colour reproductions. It was produced in conjunction with a touring retrospective exhibition and features contributions from multiple curators and scholars, reflecting the collaborative nature of Indigenous art scholarship.

Connect to books about: artist monographs, exhibition catalogues, museum curation, Australian art criticism, biography of visual artists.

Yulyurlu : Lorna Fencer Napurrurla

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