Lily Yirringali Jurrah Hargraves Nungurrayi is a senior law woman for Lajamanu and an avid Walpiri artist and passionate about her culture. Born in the Tanami desert around 1930, she is driven to record and preserve while knowing she is fighting against time and the new impeding Western culture. The artist's depth of character and life experience is reflected in her work. She is also known as Maggie Jurrah/Hargraves. Now she prefers to be known as Jurrah.
Lily embraces colour and expression. In later years her style has changed slightly to reveal more freedom and use of colour, while years of experience with brushes show skilled execution and technique. Lily now produces stunning work with bold, confident brushwork while using a broad range of colour.
The older generation’s artistic style has come from using ochre on the body, Warlpiri’s main form of artistic practice. The same repetitive process of stroke upon stroke is used by the artists as they do when applying body paints ...the process of meditative application; the work is more than paint on canvas but a meaningful process, producing a bold strong outcome. The community has close connections with all groups through the Tanami region where dot art dominates. Now colourful works, a mixture of dot and line depict subjects containing Indigenous Aboriginal ceremony, law, culture, environment and society or “jukurrpa” (dreaming).
Lily Nungurrayi paints for the Warnayaka Arts Centre, in her native country.
Lily's work is held in a number of major collections, and she has been widely exhibited both in Australia and overseas, including France and the U.S.A. In 2009 she was a finalist in the prestigious Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.