Yukultji Napangati

Yukultji Napangati Painting for Gannon House Gallery

Born in the bush C.1970 Yukultji Napangati came out of the desert and had her first exposure to western peoples and culture in 1985. She now lives and works Kiwirrkura, Western Australia and Kintore,
Northern Territory.

Kiwirrkura is located in the Gibson Desert in Western Australia and is close to the sites of Marrapinti and Ngami. These two sites are associated with the stories that inform these paintings.
In mythological times a group of ancestral women of the Nangala and Napangati kinship subsections camped in sites around the Pollock Hills during their travels from the West.

Marrapinti is a rockhole situated in a creek west of Pollock Hills. At Marrapinti the women made nose bones, also known as Marrapinti, which are worn through a hole in the nose web. These nose bones were originally used by both men and women but are now only inserted by the older generation on ceremonial occasions.

Prior to visiting Marrapinti the women gathered the edible roots of the bush banana or silky pear vine, Marsdenia Australis, at the site of Yunala. After leaving Marrapinti they stopped at the rockhole site of Ngami where they gathered wanguna seeds from the perennial grass, Eragrostis Eripoda. This was ground into flour and made into a type of unleavened bread.*

*From a statement by the artist in 2005 for an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW.

In 2005 Yukultji was selected to participate in “Primavera” and annual exhibition of selected young artists at the MCA. you can see her talking about one of her paintings here.

More Reading on Yukultji and the Pintupi Nine

Yukultji Napangati won the prestigious Alice Prize in 2012. She was highly commended in the Art Gallery of NSW Wynne Landscape Prize in 2011 and 2013, and a finalist in 2016, 2017 and now in 2018. She was also selected as a finalist in the Telstra Indigenous Art Awards in Darwin five times since 2006.

Collections:

Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Museums and Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin

Queensland Art Gallery

National Gallery Victoria, Melbourne

MCA Collection

Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA