Eubena Nampitjin

Eubena (Yupinya) is the best known of Warlayirti Artists’ many painters. She was one of the most esteemed law women in the community, being consulted and deferred to on all questions of law. Moogaga, Eubena’s mother, taught her Maparn (healer/witchdoctor) skills before she passed away, when Eubena was just a young girl. The family travelled and hunted, performing ceremonies and law for the upkeep of their country and their own spiritual preservation.

Eubena along with her first husband (the late Gimme) and family travelled up the Canning Stock Route to Billiluna Station. From here, they followed the mission from location to location until it established the present site at Balgo. At the mission Eubena and Gimme helped Father Piele with a Kukatja dictionary. Late into her life, Eubena was one of the few people who maintained a full vocabulary of the Kukatja language. Despite living at the mission and tending herds of goats, Eubena continually travelled back to her country, living in and from the land for extended periods. Her extraordinary hunting instinct combined with an effortless energy when she was out on country.

Eubena started painting with her second husband Wimmitji in the mid 1980s. Their work shared a luminous and intricate complexity along with a love of the warm reds, oranges and yellows that continued to be Eubena’s signature palette. Eubena’s reputation grew, as one half of the famous painting duo at Balgo, but also as a solo artist in her own right. Eubena had a spontaneity and strength of brush mark that carved the paint, leaving rhythmical tracks across the canvas. Her work resonates with the power of place and intimate knowledge of country that Eubena was able to maintain throughout her life. Painting was like her second language and she painted persistently with passion and dedication, weaving stories from the Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) as well as her personal history and knowledge. Throughout her painting career, Eubena travelled extensively to attend exhibition openings around the country.