Project Gallery

Creek bed

This tapestry is the fifth in the series of tapestries commissioned by the Tapestry Foundation of Australia for loan to selected Australian Embassies and High Commissions around the world. These tapestries are all based on designs by Indigenous artists.The Tapestry Foundation of Australia funds these commissions through donations raised within the Australian and International business communities. The Tapestry Foundation of Australia was acknowledged in 2008 for the Embassy Tapestry Project, winning the AbaF Giving Awards, Victorian section in conjunction with the ATW for the outstanding success of this project.

Elizabeth Marks Nakamarra is the daughter of Frank Tjupurrula and Mary Napanangka. Her father died when she was an infant and Elizabeth was raised by stepfather Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula and uncle Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, both esteemed artists of the Papunya Tula art movement. Nakamarra was a student under Geoffrey Bardon, learning to read and write at the Papunya School during his tenure. From the age of 14 she assisted her uncles with their painting, and continued to assist her late husband Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri with his painting until his death in 1998. Nakamarra studied for three years at the Bachelor College in Alice Springs and served as a council member in Kintore for two years where she worked assiduously assisting her community members. She began painting in her own right after the death of her husband, painting her father's stories from the area of Kalipinypa, located approximately 400 km west of Alice Springs and north of Sandy Blight Junction. Nakamarra's painting revolves around the subject of the Dream Time, the time before man walked the earth, when a huge storm caused lightning to flash and the water torrent formed the landscape creating rock holes, soaks and creeks. Her paintings depict this wellspring of life; the water sources throughout the diverse terrain of the western desert both heavenly and subterranean.