What is Mulga Trees Dreaming (Watiya Tjuta)?
Mulga Trees Dreaming, known as Watiya Tjuta, is a Pintupi story connected to Uwalki, near the Kintore Range west of Haasts Bluff in the Western Desert. Today it is painted by Debra Nangala McDonald.
The Story
In Pintupi, watiya means tree or wood and tjuta means many. The story concerns the trees at Uwalki and the wood they provide for spear shafts and other wooden objects. In English the paintings are often titled Mulga Trees, Mulga Leaf or Acacia Leaves.
Uwalki was the father's country of the late Mitjili Napurrula, a painter from Haasts Bluff who learned the story from her mother and became well known for her Watiya Tjuta paintings.
What the Paintings Show
Watiya Tjuta paintings show the leaves of the trees as long, leaf-like shapes spreading across the canvas, often in layered colours.
Debra Nangala McDonald
Debra Nangala McDonald is a Pintupi painter born at Papunya in 1963. She was married to Mitjili's son, and the two women spent long periods painting together. Mitjili gave Debra permission to paint the Watiya Tjuta, and after Mitjili's passing Debra received the family's blessing to continue it. She is now the sole custodian of the story.
Debra has also brought her own eye to it. Noticing that the real trees around them were not straight, she began painting the leaves with movement, which has become a defining feature of her work. Read more in our interview with Debra.
Debra is the granddaughter of Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi, a Pintupi man from Lake MacDonald and one of the founding painters of the Western Desert painting movement that began at Papunya in the early 1970s.
Browse Watiya Tjuta paintings in our Debra Nangala McDonald collection.
Art by Farquhar is a member of the Aboriginal Art Association of Australia.