Aboriginal Painting by Tjunkiya Napaltjarri (1927-2009)

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Tjunkiya Napaltjarri is one of the oldest in the Western Desert. She was born around 1927 in the area northwest of Walungurru (known as Kintore, Northern Territory) and died in 2009. She therefore lived a good part of her life in a very traditional way (without contact with the white man). It was her mother (a woman born in Umari, a sacred site which is the main theme of Tjunkiya’s paintings) who first took her to Haasts Bluff. From that point on, she joined Papunya and then regained her ancestral lands after the return of the lands to the Aborigines. Tjunkiya started painting in 1995 and has since participated in numerous exhibitions. She became the second wife of Toba Tjakamarra, who, like her own Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi, was a prominent founding father of the Papunya Tula art movement, Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula. Similarily to a number of other women in the central and western desert of the region, Tjunkiya was introduced to painting through the Minyma Tjukurrpa (Women’s Dream) painting project in the mid-1990s. In 1996 Tjunkiya was featured in the group exhibition Papunya Women at the Utopia Art Gallery in Sydney, while in 2000 she had an exhibition at the William Mora Galleries in Melbourne and was included in the major exhibition of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius. Tjunkiya Napaltjarri’s remarkable artworks unveil forms through the technique of scraping colors across the surface, a distinctive method uncommon among Papunya Tula Artists. Tjunkiya’s works are held in major private collections, such as Nangara (also known as the Ebes Collection). Her works have also been acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. In France, her works can be admired in the collections of the Musées du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris. Her pieces are featured in esteemed collections such as in Australia: National Gallery of Australia Araluen Collection (Alice Springs) Art Gallery of New South Wales Campbelltown City Art Gallery Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory National Gallery of Victoria Supreme Court of the Northern Territory Artbank International: Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Col lection of the University of Virginia, USA Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris, France .