Minyma Kutjara | The Two Women

• Art Centre

  Maruku Arts

• Year

  2023

• Medium

  Muur-muurpa | Desert Bloodwood

• Size

  120 x 23.3 x 21.5cm

Lena Dawson is a Ngaanyatjatjarra woman residing in Warakurna community in Western Australia with her husband Ernest Bennett. She is a painter for Warakurna Artists, a weaver for Tjanpi Desert Weavers and a carver for Maruku Arts. Lena carves alongside her good friend Cynthia Burke and has been passed down the knowledge of Country and Tjukurpa from the old people. In Minyma Kutjara | The Two Women, Lena depicts the two women who travelled the artist's lands during the creation period, hunting and adventuring along the way and forming many aspects of the landscape. They also left behind information still used today about the important rituals and work of women. Lena has etched what is like a map that only she and other people of this Country can read, with information necessary to hunt and survive coded into the landscape.