Sabbia Gallery has represented Lynette Lewis for several years and we are delighted to host, as part of our biannual Indigenous exhibition series, Together we tell our stories 2021, a duo exhibition featuring Lynette and her daughter Jayanna Andy. Jayanna shows great promise and is following in the footsteps of her mother, telling her stories in her own voice. Referencing the telling of stories in sand (milpatjunanyi), the sgraffito technique of scratching into the surface of the ceramic form is ideal for creating the marks of the artist in their own style.
I was twelve years old when my father and my mother took me to my father’s country, Makiri, to collect tjala (honey ants). My father told me the Dreaming story of how the tjala came from Papunya, through Amata and then to Makiri and that’s where they made their home. There are holes in the rock, like rock holes, that were made by the tjala in the dreamtime.
My father has passed away and Makiri is a place for men’s business only. I still go out with my family in the country around Ernabella to collect tjala after the rains when the ground is soft, the black ones are the best.
Makiri is desert country like Wamikata. Wamikata is a big red sand dune near Ernabella. We go there to collect maku (witchetty grubs) and tjanpi (grass) for weaving. It’s also a place for teaching milpatjunanyi (telling stories in the sand) to children.
Lynette Lewis, 2021
My grandmother Atipalku paints her father’s Dreaming on canvas. It is Mulayangu tjukurpa (story). Two years ago I went to that country with my mother Lynette and my grandmother Atipalku and we camped there. Atipalku told us the story of the wanampi (water snake) that lives there.
I am also telling my great grandfather’s story on ceramics. It’s the same story that Atipalku is painting, but I’m making the waterholes. These are the rock holes where the wanampi lives.
Jayanna Andy, 2021
