Mitjili Napurrula is a Pintupi woman from Haasts Bluff in the Northern Territory. Born around 1945 she is a half sister of Turkey Tolson, one of the most well known Pintupi artists and her Mother, Tjunkiya Napaltjarri is also an accomplished artist from this region.
Mitjili Napurrula married Long Tom Tjapanangka (a leading senior artist at the Haasts Bluff Community) Papunya in the 1960s and she now lives at Mt Liebig .
Mitjili began painting at the Ikuntji Women’s Centre in 1992. She paints her father’s country called Uwalki which lies in the Gibson Desert near the Kintore Ranges, west of Haasts Bluff. This country is characterised by red sand hills, bushes and trees including the beautiful desert oaks.
Since working with the Ikuntji artists she has developed a very strong and distinctive personal style based on her paintings of trees and country at Uwalki, (the women’s side of this Tjukurrpa. She was taught some of her key imagery by her mother drawing patterns in the sand. She says: “My mother taught me my father’s Tjukurrpa; that’s what I’m painting on the canvas”.
This style has gained her a strong following within Australia and internationally.

Collections:
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide.
Gartner Meyer Collection San Francisco

Publications:
Spirit Country, Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art, Jennifer Isaacs, ISBN 1864980494

Aboriginal Artists Dictionary of Biographies, Kreecmanski, Janusz B &
Birnberg, Margo JB Books ISBN 1876622474