Language: Yankunytjatjara
LeShaye was born in Alice Springs in 2001 and is a Yankunytjatjara woman. At the age of one her grandmother, fellow artist Sandra Pumani brought LeShaye to Mimilli, a remote aboriginal community on the APY Lands in South Australia. From the age of one Leshay was raised on country by Sandra and the Pumani family.
LeShaye fondly remembers the elder women taking her out on bush trips whilst Sandra was at work, particularly Milatjari Pumani and Ngupulya Pumani. “We would go out and they would teach me about traditional life”. LeShaye learnt to weave, make punu and hunt for witchetty grubs and other bush medicines. LeShaye was taught about the dreamtime stories around Mimilli, which would later inform her artworks. LeShaye’s colourful ceramic vessels are decorated with plants native to Bucket Well, a homeland not far from Mimili community where she grew up.
LeShaye now resides in Adelaide and works at the APY Art Centre Collective Studio. She is an exceptional emerging ceramicist and is part of the Blak Manta First Nations ceramics collective.