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Beyond Everlasting Ugudungu
By Dr Faye Parriman, Natasha Lloyd, Celina Lloyd, Leticia Lloyd and Jessica Lloyd
My name is Faye Parriman. I am a Noongar and Yamatji woman from Western Australia, born in the small town of Mullewa. When I was a little child, I was taken from my family and placed at Tardun Mission, where I grew up. Tardun became my home, but being separated from my family and Country at such a young age was deeply sad and upsetting.
At the mission, Sundays were special. We would be loaded onto a truck or bus and taken out into the bush. Those few hours on Country gave us freedom, joy and a sense of belonging. We would wander through the landscape looking for bush tucker, and when the wildflowers were in bloom, we would head straight for the fields of everlasting daisies and pom-poms.
I still remember seeing those endless carpets of flowers from the bus windows and calling out, “There! We want to go there — look at all the pom-poms and everlastings!” As soon as the bus stopped, we would run through the fields, rolling among the flowers, picking them, making jewellery, laughing and playing together. We made headbands, necklaces and bangles from the flowers because we had nothing else. Those moments brought us happiness and helped us survive the hardships of mission life.
Among the everlasting flowers were spider orchids, hidden beneath shrubs and small trees. Sometimes there would be only one orchid, sometimes a small cluster. They were scattered across the landscape, never easy to find, and they became my favourite flower. In this painting, the orchids appear scattered throughout the composition, just as they appeared in Country when I was a child.
For many years, those memories remained locked away in my heart.
More than twenty years ago, I was sitting there trying to think about what to paint. My son-in-law said to me, “Paint your story.”
That simple suggestion changed everything.
For a long time, I had been afraid to paint the wildflowers because doing so meant revisiting memories that were painful and deeply emotional. But I finally gathered the courage to put those memories onto canvas. I called that first painting Everlasting Memories.
When I finished it, I cried.
When I sold it, I cried again.
Those tears marked the beginning of a healing journey. Through painting, I began releasing the memories I had carried for so long. The wildflowers helped me reconnect with Country, culture, family and myself. They carried the colours, beauty and spirit of the Country I remembered as a child. They brought me home.
Beyond Everlasting Ugudungu continues that journey.
This work was created collaboratively with my daughter, Natasha Lloyd, and my granddaughters, Celina Lloyd, Leticia Lloyd and Jessica Lloyd. Together, we painted this artwork, each brushstroke and dot carrying our connection as women, artists, mothers, daughters and granddaughters. It is a story that moves across three generations.
As part of this journey, we returned to my Country together. We walked through the landscapes that inspired my earliest paintings and visited the places where the everlasting flowers bloom. The young women experienced the Country for themselves, seeing not only the flowers but also the strength, resilience and love that lives within that land.
We also travelled to Kalbarri, part of my traditional Country, where I was able to reconnect with the lands of my grandmothers and great-grandparents. Standing on those ancestral lands alongside my daughter and granddaughters was a powerful experience. The girls saw the beauty of the wildflowers, but they also witnessed the deeper stories held within the landscape.
They fell in love with the Country.
Now they return whenever they can.
What began as my personal healing journey has become a shared family journey. The stories, knowledge and connection to Country continue to grow through each generation. It is important that these stories are handed down so that my grandchildren can continue telling them, painting them, and sharing them with future generations.
When we painted this work together, the five of us, I felt immense pride and joy. As a grandmother, it means everything to be able to teach my granddaughters how to paint these flowers and understand the stories they carry. Knowing that they now love this Country and these wildflowers as I do gives me hope that these stories will continue long into the future.
Beyond Everlasting Ugudungu is more than a painting of wildflowers.
It is a living story of survival, healing, remembrance and return.
It honours the strength of our ancestors, the resilience of Stolen Generations survivors, and the enduring connection between family and Country. Carried by five artists and three generations of women, this story continues to grow stronger each time we walk back onto Country together.