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Catalogue Number: 23/126
This painting shows a plant that grows in the dry desert of Central Australia. It is a bush medicine plant. The weather there is hot and there is not much rain. But when the rain does come you can find green leaves and small flowers.
After a big rain, the bush medicine plant grows and small pink and yellow flowers bloom. After a while, the flowers dry up and fall. They drop seeds on the red earth, waiting for the next rain to grow again.
Aboriginal women who live in this area know this plant well, they collect the green leaves of the plant not long after the rain, when the leaves are fresh. Aboriginal women use the leaves to make bush medicine. It can help with colds, sore muscles, and other sickness.
This painting is about nature healing us and how people and plants are connected in caring, old ways.