SHARON NUMINA - Aboriginal artist from Utopia North Central Desert region
SHARON NUMINA NAPANANGKA - Kaytetye Artist from Utopia region
Sharon was born in 1981 and attended school at Kormilda College Darwin. Sharon is one of six sisters and two brothers. Her mother Barbara Price Mbtitjana, an elder painter and cultural elder from Stirling Station near Tennant Creek, taught all her daughters to paint. Sharon is the youngest of the of the fabulous Numina Sister desert artists. Sharon currently lives in Darwin with her older sisters and mother.
Sharon's father, now passed, is from Utopia. The stories of Collecting Bush Tucker and Emu Dreaming along with other themes that Sharon paints, is her mother's and father's Country and Dreaming totems and cultural knowledge stories.
Sharon and her sisters, and mother, comes from a long line of desert painters of the contemporary Aboriginal art and dot-dot central desert movement from well renowned painter aunties: Gloria and Kathleen Petyerre, who are well established artists in Alice Springs.
The Bush Medicine Leaves Dreaming knowledge story is a popular theme of the Numina Sisters. Many women from the Peytre, Mambitji and Numina family name hold custody of the story and knowledge keepers of painting series-themes such as Bush Medicine Leaves, Bush Tucker, Seeded, Soakage, Womens' Ceremony, Dingo Tracks etc - in common with other skin groups across the vast arid creek beds and red sand of central Australia.
Subjects of importance in the theme-series painted are various bush tucker food. Plant foods include wild berries, plums, onion, yam, seeds etc. Many animals can be depicted as food source or as totems such as Thorny Devil Lizard and Dingo Tracks.
Women's Ceremony - Awelye Body Art Ceremony are mostly painted by senior ladies but younger women learn them. Some themes such as Bush Tucker can be open and universal others can be secret and or significant cultural ceremonies.
Knowing, carrying and reinforcing these stories gives respect for Country and ancestors and shows responsibility and care of holding such them to keep the stories and traditional practices alive and well. The knowledge must be retold repeatedly and handed on as part of one's cultural identity.
The Numina Sisters have all been taught to paint by their earlier elder painter grandmothers, mother-auntys, and cousin-sisters connected across the Central Desert region. Their mother's and grandmother's Country is in the bush and remote Stirling Station. Their father is from the Utopia community area.
See bottom of page to see Sharon's collective works for sale
Unless otherwise stated all paintings are acrylic on canvas
All paintings are sign on the back and come with a Certificate of Authenticity.
