Walangkura Napanangka

As one of the last generation to remember a childhood lived in the desert hunting and gathering with her family, Walangkura Napanangka’s paintings recall the stories of country and the location of specific sites in her traditional homeland west of the salt lake of Karrkurutinjinya (Lake Macdonald). Born in 1946, at Tjitururrnga west of Kintore, in the remote and arid country between the Northern Territory and Western Australia, she lived with her father Rantji Tjapangati and mother Inyuwa Nampitjinpa and later, while still a teenager, travelled by foot with her family over the hundreds of kilometres from their remote desert home eventually joining Uta Uta Tjangala’s group as they walked into the settlements of Haasts Bluff and then Papunya. The lure of settlement life with its promise of plentiful food and water belied the harsh conversion they would make to an alien lifestyle with its many problems and unfamiliar demands. The upheaval however, was ameliorated to some degree by the proximity of her immediate family including her mother Inyuwa, adoptive father Tutuma Tjapangati, and sister Pirrmangka Napanangka all of whom became artists. Relocated to the community of Kintore in 1981 when the outstation movement began, Walangkura participated in the historic women’s collaborative painting project (1994) that was initiated by the older women as a means of re-affirming their own spiritual and ancestral roots. It was a time of specifically female singing, ceremony and painting, away from the gaze of outsiders and men folk. The huge and colourful canvases that emerged from the women’s camp were 'alive with the ritual excitement and narrative intensity of the occasion' (Johnson 2000: 197). Within a year, Papunya Tula Artists, now established at Kintore, had taken on many of these women as full-time artists, revitalising the company after the deaths of many of the original ‘painting men’. While individual women forged their own stylistic trajectory, these paintings were immediately distinguishable from the men’s more cerebral and symmetrical style. They radiated an exuberant and vibrant energy, the felt heart-beat of women’s affinity to country and spirit. Walangkura’s early works, created from 1996 onward, are characterized by masses of small markings and motifs covering large areas of canvas. Her favorite colour, a deep sandy orange predominates, accentuated against more somber blacks and reds and dusky greens or yellows. More recent works show a gestural quality though still tightly packed with an intensity of geometric line work representing sandhills. In a sense this provides a strong visual and contextual link to the men’s linear style as exemplified by the works of George Tjungurayi, Turkey Tolson and Willy Tjungurayi. They are rich with a sense of rhythm and unimpeded movement: they show sandhills, rockholes, journeys and gatherings of ancestral women, the flow of colours in subtle shifts of light. Many of these are monumental works that transmit the confidence of an assured and dynamic creativity. Walangkura transmits the power of the desert, soaked up during her childhood years, and imbues her works with the mystery of a sacred perception. In time Walagkura became one of Papunya Tula’s most senior women artists. After the death of her mother Inyuwa and the tragic death of her half sister Pirrmangka in 2001, she moved for a time to Kiwirrkura where she lived with her husband and fellow artist Johnny Yungut Tjupurrula and their six children. Her first solo exhibition was held at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 2003, and this was followed by another at Utopia Art Sydney in 2004. As her fame spread from this time onward she began painting increasingly for a number of private independent dealers outside of the Papunya Tula company. As a result her works could be seen in a great many galleries and retail shops throughout the country. At her best, Walangkura Napanangka was a formidable artist capable of creating masterpieces on canvases up to three metres in size and many of these are likely to become emblematic examples of Pintupi women’s art. Makinti Napanangka walked in to Haasts Bluff ration depot during the 1940’s with her young son when in her early 20’s and by the time she had moved to the new settlement of Papunya had given birth to a daughter. Having been uprooted after encountering white men while still young, she later returned to her home country as the outstation movement gained strength, and settled five hundred kilometers west of Alice Springs, at Tjukurla close to Mangarri where she was born. Although women had often assisted during the early years of the Papunya painting movement, painting had been considered an exclusively male project. Through the seventies, the male Pintupi painters had developed an austere and very precise mode of design that managed to convey the intensity of ceremonial artistry without revealing traditional sacred content. The success of their Tingari paintings in particular provided the funds and confidence that Pintupi people needed to set up outstations and return to their much longed for country. Like a number of her female tribeswomen, Makinti began painting independently many years later in 1994, when a women’s painting project was organized for the Haasts Bluff and Kintore communities. Away from their men folk and camped in a specifically female sacred site, the women re-affirmed their own traditional ceremonies and collaborated on large canvases that were soon to reveal a strikingly new creative charge. After the conspicuous deliberation of the men’s painting style, the women worked with a confident spontaneity that promised a wealth of new expressive possibilities. This event marked a major development in contemporary Desert art as many of the women went on to become full-time painters for Papunya Tula Artists and gained wide public acclaim. Makinti was by now in her mid-sixties and her bright palette, slightly impasto surfaces and loosely worked geometric compositions were immediately attractive to visiting enthusiasts and art buyers. Makinti’s gestural style and bold line work was derived from painting with her fingers dipped in earth ochres onto her clanswomen’s bodies for ceremony. The tactile surfaces of her paintings reflect this touching and sensing, just as her painterly use of colour and form generates a sense of celebration and movement. Through these haptic surfaces Makinti maintains her cultural traditions while the images serve to revivify the journeying of her two ancestral female ancestors, the Kungka Kutjarra as they dance their way across the country. Their travels follow the desert water sources and, particularly in Makinti’s art, Lupulnga, the rockhole where she was born and where her connections to her spiritual origins are felt. Small ovoid roundels, often in linear sequence, denote this crossing of country. “Care for country” is an important motivation for this bond as the water sources must be cleared of debris and sand to keep them, and the life they support, fresh and flowing. Towards the end of the nineties Makinti’s art began to focus more on long, loose linear ribbons of paint, inspired by the hair string traditionally spun and worn by women and connected to love magic, sexuality and allure. These bands of colour also hint at ‘the rhythm and movements of ceremonial songs and dances as well as the desert landscape itself’ (Ryan 2005). Dense patterns of curving lines predominate over smaller areas of tightly packed cellular shapes. Visual complexities tease the eye in an interesting overlap between highly structured areas and those that are painted more loosely. This more controlled approach coincided with a cataract operation that restored her failing eyesight and revitalized Makinti’s engagement with painting. Piling on the paint, she instinctively conveys her own sense of order amongst the vibrantly coloured profusion of yellows, oranges and various shades of pink. Her distinctive dabbing technique and long stroking brushwork carry over into rhythmic compositions that resound with an instinctive energy, full of life and enthusiasm. Although a tiny woman, Makinti commands a strength of purpose and a presence that has been vital in furthering the momentum of the desert painting community. She is recognized as one of Papunya Tula’s leading artists and in recent years has been named as one of Australia’s 50 Most Collectable Artists every year between 2003 and 2006 in Australian Art Collector Magazine. This recognition followed several important solo exhibitions held at Utopia Art Sydney in 2000 and 2001 and at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi the following year. Makinti Napanangka, until her passing in 2011, was the most senior woman of the elderly group, who are widely recognized as the top Pintupi painters. While she was a key member of Papunya Tula Artists, and her name was listed as a director of the company, she increasingly painted for a range of dealers in Alice Springs outside of the ‘company’ during the last years of her life. While many of her works produced for these alternate sources are equal to anything produced for Papunya Tula, the market, currently deeply concerned about provenance issues, does not think them of as highly. This was underscored when in 2008 she was awarded the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for a work submitted by Papunya Tula. While the award winning work itself may not have been her finest, those present overwhelmingly endorsed the award given the quality of her works over a sustained period. In making the award the judges demonstrated quite pointedly their own prejudice in favour of art centre provenanced works at a time when the public debate over independent dealers had reached its zenith. Makinti was a committed and prolific artist, whose work has been widely exhibited and included in many important collections. At the time of her death she was one of the most highly respected custodians of women’s traditional knowledge in the Central Desert region and the standard bearer for the women artists of the region.

2005 - Winner of the Redlands Westpac Art Prize

2004 - Walangkura Napanangka, Utopia Art Sydney
2003 - Walangkura Napanangka: Recent Paintings, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne

2024 – Indigenous Masterworks: Works from the Papunya Tula, Utopia & Tiwi Islands Artists, Lennox St Gallery, Richmond, VIC, Australia
2013 – Painting Now: Papunya Tula Artists, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2011 – Papunya Tula Women’s Art, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, NSW, Australia
2011 – Celebrating 40 Years of Papunya Tula Artists, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2010 – Small Papunya Paintings, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2010 – PTA Now: Papunya Tula Artists, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2010 – Tradition and Innovation: Papunya Tula 2010, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2010 – Circles in the Sand: Aboriginal Art from Central Australia in the Kluge-Ruhe Collection, Embassy of Australia, Washington, DC, USA
2009 – En_trance: Experience and Sensation in Nomadic Art, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2008 – Paintings from Remote Communities: Indigenous Australian Art from the Laverty Collection, Newcastle Regional Gallery, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
2008 – Desert Prophets: Papunya Tula Artists, Mossenson Galleries, Subiaco, WA, Australia
2008 – Papunya Tula Artists 2008, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2008 – Unearthed: Stories Written in the Land, Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2008 – 20 Years of Papunya Tula Artists, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2007 – Papunya Tula Artists 2007, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2006–2007 – Gifted: Contemporary Aboriginal Art – The Mollie Gowing Acquisition Fund, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2006 – Papunya Tula Artists (PTA), Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2006 – Alice Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2005 – Papunya Tula Artists, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2005 – Pintupi Women, Indigenart, Perth, WA, Australia
2005 – Papunya Tula Artists: New Work for a New Space, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2005 – Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (22nd NATSIAA), Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
2004 – Pintupi Art 2004, Tony Bond Aboriginal Art Dealer, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2004 – Papunya Tula Artists 2004, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2004 – All About Papunya, Chapman Gallery, Canberra, ACT, Australia
2004 – Depth of Field: Anamorphosis, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2004 – Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (21st NATSIAA), Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
2004 – Ma Yungu: Pass It On, Framed Gallery, Darwin, NT, Australia
2004 – Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2004 – Desert Mob Art Show, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2004 – Alice Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2004 – Pintupi Artists, Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2003 – Pintupi Art 2003, Tony Bond Aboriginal Art Dealer, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2003 – Recent Paintings by the Women Artists of Kintore and Kiwirrkurra, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2003 – Desert Mob Art Show, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2003 – Pintupi Art from the Western Desert, Indigenart, Perth, WA, Australia
2003 – Papunya Tula Artists: A Gift from the Desert, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2003 – Pintupi Artists, Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2002 – Paintings from Our Country, Tony Bond, Aboriginal Art Dealer, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2002 – Pintupi Men’s and Women’s Stories, Indigenart, Perth, WA, Australia
2002 – Art Born of the Western Desert, Framed Gallery, Darwin, NT, Australia
2002 – Saluting Papunya, Chapman Gallery, Canberra, ACT, Australia
2002 – Pintupi Artists, Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2002 – Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2001 – Size Doesn’t Matter: Papunya Tula Painting 1997–2001, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2001 – Art of the Pintupi, Tony Bond, Aboriginal Art Dealer, Adelaide, SA, Australia
2001 – Six Painters from Papunya Tula Artists, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2001 – Dreamscapes: Contemporary Desert Art, Mostings Hus, Frederiksberg, Denmark
2001 – Papunya Tula Aboriginal Art, William Mora Galleries, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2001 – Papunya Tula 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Chapman Gallery, Canberra, ACT, Australia
2001 – The Desert Mob Art Show, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2001 – Pintupi Exhibition, Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2001 – Kintore and Kiwirrkurra, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
2001 – Museum Exhibition, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2001 – Alice Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
2001 – Flinders University Art Museum Exhibition, Flinders University Art Museum, Bedford Park, SA, Australia
2000 – Aboriginal Art, Galerie Baehr, Speyer, Germany
2000 – Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2000 – Pintupi Women, Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
1999 – Utopia Art Sydney Exhibition, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
1999 – Flinders University Art Museum Exhibition, Flinders University Art Museum, Bedford Park, SA, Australia
1999 – Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (16th NATSIAA), Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
1999 – New Horizons 2000, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
1998 – Desert Mob Art Show, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
1998 – Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (15th NATSIAA), Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
1998 – Art of the Aborigines, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
1998 – Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
1997 – Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi Exhibition, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
1997 – Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (14th NATSIAA), Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
1997 – Desert Mob Art Show, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
1997 – Chapman Gallery Exhibition, Chapman Gallery, Canberra, ACT, Australia
1996 – Papunya Tula Artists Exhibition, Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, Alice Springs, NT, Australia
1996 – Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Exhibition, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, NT, Australia
1996 – Utopia Art Sydney Exhibition, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
1996 – A/S Art Foundation Exhibition, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

Aboriginal Art Museum, The Netherlands
Art Gallery of New South Wales, NSW
Artbank
Gabrielle Pizzi Collection, VIC
Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory, NT
The Kelton Foundation, USA

Walagkura’s earliest paintings created from 1996 onward became popular for their exploration of aspects of principally Tingari stories. She was quick to develop an identifiable style in which sparsely dotted circles in a variety of colours became more densely painted in a more restricted pallete over time. The connecting lines, typical of Pintupi men’s paintings, were removed and small circles rendered in various shades became spaced, as if the wind had blown them into tighter and looser groupings. The first work appeared at auction in 1999 in a Sotheby’s mixed offering. Un-illustrated in the catalogue and measuring just 91 x 46 cm Rockhole Site of Yukatjirri had been created in 1996 and sold for just $747 (Lot 519). It was not until July 2001 when the next work was offered and by this time Walankura had become quite conspicuous in the primary market. The small 91 x 61 cm work, created in 1997, doubled its high estimate selling for $6, 000, then the artists 26th highest record. By the end of 2004, roughly corresponding to the time from which she began painting for others outside of Papunya Tula, nine works had sold of 12 offered. Thereafter a flurry of works were offered on the secondary market. No less than 68 paintings appeared for sale in just three years between 2006 and 2008, with only 51% selling. Her most successful work in a conventional Pintupi style was the Tingari image Rockhole at Tjintjin Tjintjin at sold at Elder Fine Art in June 2007 for what was a bargain price. The painting measured 182 x 151 cm and carried a very low presale estimate of just $10, 000-15, 000. Lucky indeed was the buyer who paid just $7, 300 hammer for what is, in my opinion, close to a masterpiece. Her highest result was for a work offered through Lawson~Menzies in May 2006 and later in March 2008. When first offered, the massive Kutungka Napanangka at Papunga 2005, created for independent dealer Tony Mason sold to a Menzies investment consortium for $45, 600 eclipsing the $20, 400 record held by the Papunya Tula provenanced Travels of Kutungka Napanangka 2001, that had stood since 2004. Advised to offer the work again two years later, it realised a 16% increase in value to $52, 800, not enough profit to cover the buyers premium even if the owners were given 0% sellers commission. In her works of the 2004-2008 period, Walangkura played with conventional Pintupi icons by moving them around and stretching out the shapes with a mastery over balance and form. Like Naata Nungurayi and several other Pintupi women she embraced grid-like forms and striated bands of alternating colour. Her fourth highest result was for a fine example created at the beginning of this period. When offered at Lawson~Menzies in November 2006 the 154 x 184 cm non-Papunya Tula work sold for $28, 800 against a presale estimate of $30, 000-40, 000 ( Lot 173). In 2015 no les than 20 works were offered for sale, of which 13 found new homes. Deutscher & Hackett showed such strong confidence in a 183 x 244 cm major Papunya Tula provenancned work that they sent it to auction carrying a presale estimate of $40, 000-60, 000. It sold for $48, 800 thereby achieving the artist's second highest price to date. While her works performed badly in 2017 and 2018 all eight of the eight paintings on offer in 2019 found new homes. Though none enetered her highest records thse sales were enough to see her become the 22nd most successful artist in that year against her standing in 49th place in the annuls of the movement overall. Interest in Walangkura centres principally on those works she created in her more recent style. During the period 2008-2011 her prodigious talent and independent nature saw her work for a variety of reputable alternative dealers. By 2012 she was no longer able to paint. Still, Papunya Tula works occupy six of her top ten results and the vast majority of her top 20. As time goes by, those works created for independent dealers will become more and more acceptable by a maturing market. Nevertheless, her finest paintings will require excellent provenance if they are to achieve prices that will see them displace works amongst her 10 highest sales to date.