When Lightening Strikes

Hilda Nakamarra Rogers was born in Papunya, an Aboriginal community

located 240 km northwest of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She

attended her local school in Papunya before going to Yirara College in

Alice Springs. After college she returned to Papunya and worked at the

school teaching language.

Hilda married a man from Yuendumu in 1987 and

moved to Yuendumu, a neighbouring community to Papunya where many of the

same families live. Later she moved to Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal

community approximately 160 km west of Yuendumu where she still lives.

She is married to Desmond Williams and they have two sons, Micah and

Eliezer. She also has a granddaughter who Hilda enjoys looking after.

Both her parents are deceased and were artists at Papunya. As a child

she watched her parents paint and listened to their stories.

Hilda started painting in 1988 and since 2003 has begun painting consistently

with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned

and governed art centre in Yuendumu. Hilda paints Bush tucker stories,

in particular Ngurlu Jukurrpa (Native Seed Dreaming). Occasionally she

paints her husband’s dreaming, Yurrumpi Jukurrpa (Honey Ant Dreaming)

and her father’s dreaming, Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming), Dreamings

which have been passed down through the generations for millennia.

She likes sport and sometimes goes hunting for goanna and kangaroo and

looking for bush tucker. She also enjoys visiting her husband’s family

who live in Yuendumu.