Caroline Numina & The Numina Sisters

Caroline Numina is one of senior sisters of six well known desert artists: Jacinta, Lanita, Louise, Selina, and Sharon. She has two brothers, her father has passed away and her mum still paints from time to time. She later studied at Yirarra College in Alice Springs. Like her sisters and mother she comes from a long line of desert painters of the contemporary Aboriginal art and dot-dot central desert movement.

After high school, Caroline Numina returned to Stirling Station near Ti Tree and met her husband. She started painting in the early 1980s. As with her other sisters, she was taught by her well-renowned painter aunties, Gloria and Kathleen Petyarre, who are well-established artists in Alice Springs. Caroline and her family live in Darwin and travel home to visit her mother, Barbara Price Mtjimbana, often, as well as to her partner's country.

Many women from the Petyarre, Mambitji and Numina family name hold custody of themes such as Bush Medicine Leaves, Bush Tucker, Seeded, Soakage, Women’s' Ceremony, and Thorny Devil dreaming’s. Reinforcing these Dreaming’s through their artworks gives respect for Country and their ancestors. The knowledge must be retold and handed on to younger generations. As such, Caroline has taught her daughter how to paint and shared her knowledge of the Thorny Devil dreaming to honour her lineage.

The Numina Sisters have all been taught to paint by their artist-grandmothers, mother-aunt, and cousin-sisters connected across the Central Desert region. Their mother's and grandmother's Country are in the bush and remote Stirling Station. Caroline's daughter Pacinta Turner is fast becoming a celebrated young artist following in her mother and aunties’ footsteps. She paints the stories of her heritage, including bush tucker and bush medicine dreaming, mountain devil lizard dreaming, honey ant, emu and kangaroo dreaming in exquisite detail and striking colours.

Caroline is the custodian of the Thorny Devil Lizard and Bush Medicine Leaves Dreaming’s.

About the Numina Sisters

The Numina sisters originate from Central Australia, specifically the Anmatyerre lands, and currently reside in Darwin. They were raised on Stirling Station, situated between Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, and are accomplished artists. Caroline, Lanita, Sharon, and Selina, the sisters, have depicted a variety of narratives pertaining to Water Dreaming, Emu Dreaming, bush medicine plants gathered on their native land, and Dingo Dreaming stories. Their artwork appears to encapsulate the essence of the land through a fusion of diverse scales and markers unique to each artist. The outcome is a splendid collection of traditional tales presented with a contemporary essence. The artists' use of colour renders these paintings contemporary art, all the while preserving robust connections to their traditional culture. Additionally, the traditional symbols, which unify desert communities across a substantial expanse of Australia's Central Desert, are consistently evident in their work.

The Story Behind the Bush Leaves Paintings

The medicine bush leaves depicted were originally of the Kurrajong tree of which there are some 30 varieties dating back 50 million years. They scale from small shrubs to massive trees some 30 metres in height. In the larger trees their trunks are used to store water, but it is the leaves that have the medicinal purposes.

The women of Utopia, the remote region far to the west of Alice Springs where Caroline’s people originated, gather the bush leaves, boil them, and then mash them with animal fats (kangaroo, emu, or goanna) making a medicinal poultice or paste which can last for many months. The paste is used to heal a multitude of afflictions such as bites, wounds, skin infections, rashes, and skin cancer. The bush leaves are also boiled in hot water to make an infusion, or healing tea. Other preparations were used as insect repellent or were thrown into the water to stun the fish.

The desirability of the artworks

Admirers of the medicine bush leaf paintings often observe their mesmerizing attraction. People are captivated how the paintings appear to be in motion in front of their eyes like the leaves on the canvas are literally blowing in the wind. Many buyers and collectors of medicine bush leaf artworks both in Australia, America and Europe are also medical specialists who buy the works to hang in their consulting rooms to show an Aboriginal artwork with medical connotations.