"Grandmother's Country" By Michelle Possum Nungurrayi

Artist: Michelle Possum Nungurrayi 

Size (H x W): 110 x 203 cm

This painting represents the sacred Country of Gabriella and Michelle’s grandmother in Laramba, on Anmatyerre land in the Northern Territory. This dreaming was passed down to them through their mother and grandmother and holds deep cultural significance. The story honours the matriarchal line and the women who travelled, gathered bush foods, held ceremonies, and lived in balance with the land.

Symbols in the painting show ceremonial sites, women’s gathering places, bush foods, waterholes, and ancestral tracks, seen from a bird’s eye view. The U-shapes represent women seated in ceremony, the concentric circles depict places of gathering or abundance, and dots or star-like shapes mark bush plums and berries.

Gabriella and Michelle learned these stories directly from their father, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, and they continue to honour their grandmother’s Country through painting. Each work keeps the stories alive and passes on knowledge and culture to future generations.

About the Artist – Michelle Possum Nungurrayi

Michelle Possum Nungurrayi is a highly respected Indigenous artist, born in 1970 in Papunya, a community in the Northern Territory known as the birthplace of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. She is the daughter of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, one of Australia’s most celebrated artists and a founding figure in the Western Desert art tradition, and Emily Nakamarra Possum.

Michelle was taught to paint by her father, and she carries forward his legacy while also sharing her own voice through art. Over time, she has developed a distinctive style that includes Women’s Dreamings and Ceremonial stories, handed down through her family and community.

Her paintings reflect deep knowledge of Country, culture and ceremony. The symbols within her work represent sacred sites, women’s ceremonies, animals, plants, waterholes, digging sticks, footsteps, and more - all woven into rich, living stories of the land and her people.

Michelle’s work is widely collected both in Australia and internationally. She continues to paint in a way that honours her ancestors while sharing the beauty and depth of her culture with the world.