Pulpurru Davies
| Pulpurru Davies | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Katapi Pulpurru c. 1943 near Yankaltjunku, Western Australia |
| Residence | Patjarr, Western Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Painter |
| Years active | 1990 – present |
| Organization | Kayili Artists |
| Style | Western Desert art |
Pulpurru Davies is an Aboriginal artist from central Australia. Most of her early life was spent living nomadically in the desert, until she and her family were settled at Warburton in the late 1960s. Part of her life in the bush was featured in the documentary People of the Australian Western Desert (1966). She has since become one of the earliest and most successful Ngaanyatjarra artists.
Pulpurru was born around the early 1940s. She was born near Yankaltjunku, a in the northeast Gibson Desert. Her family belong to the Ngaanyatjarra people, for whom Yankaltjunku is a sacred place. Pulpurru grew up living a traditional, nomadic way of life in the desert with her family. They moved from waterhole to waterhole in their traditional country. They lived this way up until the 1960s, by which time they were one of the last groups of nomadic people in Australia.
By the mid-1960s, Pulpurru's family were camped at Patjarr, which was only a rockhole at the time. They had been forced to stay in one place because of several years of drought, and Patjarr usually had a reliable supply of water. While they were living there, an English anthropologist named Ian Dunlop came and filmed the family in their daily routines. It was later made into a documentary, titled People of the Australian Western Desert (1966), produced by the Australian Commonwealth Film Unit. Pulpurru was an adult by that time.
We went and lived there at Patjarr rock hole when there was no water. We lived there for a long time. After a long time we saw a white man who came [...] We used to get up in the morning and put our carrying dish on our heads and walk off. He used to film us from behind. That white man filmed us as we gathered fruits, grains, and berries. That other lady and I and the children used to collect food and he used to film us. We would dig for small game, dig the animals from the burrow, kill them, pick them up and walk off. That man making them movie stayed here a long time and later on he went back home.
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