Seven Sisters Dreaming, c. 2008, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi
Acrylic on canvas, 205cm x 108cm
Provenance: Charleston’s Fine Art Auctions, Sydney.
Central Desert artist Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi is the eldest daughter of the acclaimed painter Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Nungurrayi worked alongside her father from a young age, learning his techniques and absorbing the cultural stories of her family. Gabriella’s Dreaming’s including women’s ceremonies, Milky Way, Bush Tucker, Goanna and Serpent Dreamings which have been handed down through generations of ancestors. Nungurrayi’s works are bright and bold in both colour and composition (1).
The Dreaming story of the Seven Sisters is one of the most widely distributed ancient stories amongst Aboriginal Australia. The story relates to the journey of the seven sisters that make up the star cluster known as the Pleiades, in the constellation Taurus. In the Seven Sisters story, the group of stars are Napaljarri sisters from one skin group. In the Warlpiri story of this Jukurrpa, the sisters are often represented carrying the Jampijinpa man Wardilyka, who is in love with the women. Then the morning star, Jukurra-jukurra, who is a Jakamarra man and who is also in love with the seven Napaljarri sisters, is shown chasing them across the night sky. They are seen to be running away, fleeing from the man who wants to take one of the sisters for his wife. However under traditional law, the man pursuing the sisters is the wrong skin group and is forbidden to take a Napaljarri wife.
So the Seven Sisters are running away from the Jampijinpa man, they travel across the land, and then from a steep hill they launch themselves into the sky in an attempt to escape. But the Jakamarra man follows the sisters into the sky, travelling in the form of a star seen in the Orion’s Belt star cluster, which is also seen as the base of the Big Dipper. So every night the Seven Sisters launch themselves from earth into the night sky, and every night the Jampijinpa man follows after them across the sky (2).