Biography

Debbie Brown belongs to one of Australia's best-known central desert art communities, Yuendumu, where contemporary Aboriginal painting emerged in the 1970s alongside Papunya. 

Like most Aboriginal painters, Debbie Brown's work evokes a story of the primordial Dreamtime, during which mythical beings (the Lightning Men, the Rainbow Python, the yam, etc.) crossed Australia and founded the moral, religious and spiritual laws that still govern Aboriginal culture today.

Debbie Brown is the ‘guardian’ of the place where the bush tomato grows, and as such she is responsible for carrying out the rituals required to maintain the fertility of the site in question. The paintings therefore deal with the Dream (Jukurrpa) of the Bush Tomato's ancestor (Wanakiji) and his movements in the desert as seen from the sky. 

As this legend can only be known in detail by the initiated members of his people, the artist indicates only that it is linked to the sacred site of Yaturlu (Mount Theo), situated to the north of Yuendumu. The lines that appear on the canvas symbolise, seen from the sky, the paths taken by the ancestor. The artist highlights them by using the many colours that adorn the plant. 

In order to communicate to the earth a spiritual force that will sustain the growth of the plants, the artist and the women of her clan group apply body paint, sing and dance during sacred ceremonies known as ‘awelye’. Painting is also a ritual action that perpetuates ancestral techniques such as the endemic pointillism.