CAROLINE NUMINA NAPANANGKA 

Caroline Numina is one of senior sisters of six well known desert artists: the Numina Sisters. She has two brothers, and her mother still paints.

Caroline went to primary school on Stirling Station near Tennant Creek. 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 80s. As with her other sisters she was taught by her well renowned painter aunties: Gloria and Kathleen Petyerre, who are well established artists in Alice Springs.

Caroline and her family now live in Darwin but travel back to her country often to visit family. The Bush Medicine Leaves Dreaming knowledge story is a popular theme of the Numina Sisters. Many women from the Peytre, Mambitji and Numina family name hold custody of the story and knowledge keepers of painting series-themes such as Bush Medicine Leaves, Bush Tucker, Seeded, Soakage, Women's Ceremony etc. 

Plant foods include wild berries, plums, onion, yam, seeds etc. Many animals can be depicted as food source or as totems such as Thorny Devil Lizard and Dingo Tracks.Women's Ceremony, Awelye Body Art Ceremony are mostly painted by senior ladies but younger women need to know it from a young age. Some themes such as Buck Tucker can be open and universal others can be secret and or significant cultural ceremonies. 

Knowing, carrying and reinforcing these stories gives respect for Country and ancestors and shows responsibility and care of holding such stories to keep the stories and traditional practices alive. The knowledge must be retold repeatedly and handed on.The Numina Sisters have all been taught to paint by their earlier elder painter grandmothers, mother-auntys, and cousin-sisters connected across the Central Desert region. Their mother's and grandmother's Country is in the bush and remote Stirling Station. Caroline's daughter Pacinta Turner Knowing, carrying and reinforcing these stories gives respect for Country and ancestors and shows responsibility and care of holding such stories to keep the stories and traditional practices alive. The knowledge must be retold repeatedly and handed on.

The Numina Sisters have all been taught to paint by their earlier elder painter grandmothers, mother-auntys, and cousin-sisters connected across the Central Desert region. Their mother's and grandmother's Country is in the bush and remote Stirling Station.