ABORIGINAL DESERT ART  GALLERY

JANET FORRESTER NGALA

Born c. 1936 Janet Forrester Ngala is a Luritja speaker who began painting in the late 80s with the Jukurrpa Dreaming group, based in Alice Springs.

She lives in Alice Springs but from time to time stays in Ernabella South Australia.

Janet paints the Dreamings from Ernabella and Maryvale, which were told to her by her grandparents. She often travels to the Dreaming sites of her family to paint. Her works have been selected for numerous group exhibitions throughout Australia including a touring exhibition with the Australian National Gallery .

Janet's work was included in a major exhibition of the Jukurrpa artists at the Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs in 1989 and in several subsequent shows including Desert Dreamings, Grand Hyatt, Jakarta 1992, London 1993, Sydney 1994-95-96-97-98, Melbourne 1994-95-96-97-98, Australian Embassy Washington and New York 1999. Currently Janet is living in Alice Springs, with her husband Arthur and their children.

Her works have been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia and collectors from New York, Philadelphia, England, Switzerland, Germany, Rome and Indonesia. Janet has been painting for Michael Hollow Aboriginal Desert Art Gallery, in Alice Springs - Melbourne and Sydney since 1989.

Janet's brilliant use of colour creates a multi-dimensional vision - from the radiating vines of the Bush Banana, to the countless stars of the Milky Way. Her work is highly sought after both in Australia as well as overseas.

This piece by Janet shows us how women gather Wild Honey, also known as Sugarbag (Walaja). There are women depicted with their coolamons and digging sticks, the line through the centre shows their pathway to find the Wild Honey. Walaja can be found in the Bloodwood tree.

The women go to different places around Utopia to collect leaves from special plants. Back at the camp the leaves are boiled to extract resin. Kangaroo fat is mixed into the resin, creating a paste that can be stored for a long time in bush conditions. This medicine is used to heal cuts, wounds, bites, rashes and also acts as an insect repellant.

To find it, women search on the trunks of these trees and look for a small opening to find the nest.

There is a sign by which you can distinguish a false hole from a true hole. This is a trail of wax left by the bees at the entrance to their nest.

Once the nest is found, the women chop away the wood with digging sticks to obtain the Walaja. The drop shapes depict the nest of the bees and the ochre circle, the entrance to their nest.

The honey bee does not sting like the European bee. It is very small and looks much like a fly. Bush honey has three edible parts - the honey (Ngulu), the pollen or bee-bread, and the fine soft wax that encloses their little sacs of honey.

Traditionally, women would glue a feather from a white cockatoo onto the back of one of these bees, and follow its flight path to a Bloodwood Tree, where Walaja would be ready to be found.