DOB: c. 1938

BORN: Watulka, Western Desert
LANGUAGE GROUP: Pintupi
COMMUNITY: Kiwikurra, Tjukula

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Ningura Napurrula (c. 1938–2013) was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from the Western Desert, whose work remains internationally acclaimed. Her works included a site-specific commission for the ceiling of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, as well as appearing on an Australian postage stamp.

 

Ningura married the renowned Pintupi artist Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi (c. 1924 or 1928–1998). Her first journey out of the desert was in 1962 with the Northern Territory Welfare Branch patrol, when her son Morris needed medical treatment at Papunya. Yala Yala was one of the original artists who started the celebrated Papunya Tula Art movement in the early 1970s. He has painted many masterpieces and on occasion, Ningura was apprenticed by Yala Yala and allowed to dot in the background. Ningura observed the Papunya artists work on their large paintings, and listened to them discussing the importance of each of the story's layout. In the early 1990s, Ningura started painting her own paintings, remembering the teachings of the old men and the importance of the layout of the story. As she painted, Ningura would sing the songs for that story.

 

Ningura's early works examined a range of subjects, but later in her career much of Napurrula's work focussed on the rockhole site of Wirrulnga, which was closely associated with birth and women's lives. Her paintings depict designs associated with the rockhole sites of Palturunya and Wirrulnga, east of the Kiwirrkura Community (Mount Webb) in the western desert. The central circles represent a rockhole, and the arcs represent the higher rocky outcrops near the site. Sand hills surrounding the area are also represented.

 

Ningura depicts the mythological events of her Ancestors. Her paintings focus on the travels of her female Ancestors, the sacred sites that they passed, and the mythological significance of the bush tucker they collected. These travels and rituals help to explain the contemporary customs and the ceremonial lives of these Pintupi women. In the mythological times, one old woman passed through this site during her travels.

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