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Walangkura Napanangka
Most of
Walangkura's work looks at the surrounding landscape which a
mythical woman Kutungka
Napanangka or
“devil devil woman” walked through on her violent path from
Malparingya to Kaltarra in Western Desert. This area is now
the region of Papunya, 70km west of the artist’s country of Kintore
and the image depicts the rock holes and sand hills still found in
that landscape today. The small circles represent rock holes
and the lines represent sand hills or ‘tali.’
Kutungka was said to kill and eat tribesmen as she
went. The most famous story is of a group of boys who wanted
to gang up on her, but was only accosted by one brave child.
She chased after them and caught all of the boys except for the one
‘brave’ one who ran away, cooking the others in her fire. She
then journeyed to Katarra where she entered the
earth.
It
is not made clear whether she was a relative of Walangkura’s, and
as she often paints work about this woman we can assume a familial
connection. It is most likely that she was a woman who
actually existed, as Dreamtime stories are usually based on truths
to carry their history for thousands of years where some of their
beasts relate directly to the ancient megafauna that once existed
but were eventually all eaten by the Indigenous
people.
Walangkura Napanangka has an enviable
artistic pedigree belonging to a family of renowned artists.
Both her parents Tutuma Tjapangati and Inyuwa Nampitjinpa were
highly regarded artists – her father Tutuma was one of the original
members of the seminal Early Desert art movement centered around
Papunya (Aboriginal art’s best known movement) and Inyuwa belonged
to the important first wave of Aboriginal Women artists. Her
sister Pirrmangka Napanangka (now deceased) was a rising star until
her early death and all four artists, including Walangkura, were
honoured by their inclusion in the groundbreaking exhibition,
Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius
at
the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2000. She is also
married to the Indigenous artist Johnny
Youngut.
She
is one of the elders of her tribe who also paints about birthing
rites and women’s ceremonies which she teaches in her tribe.
The artists picked up her brush in 1995 when she joined a
collaborative canvas project and within a year she began painting
for Papunya Tula Artists. Walangkura paints her Dreaming
country which consists of sandhills and rockholes. Her work
is characterized by its striking and sophisticated design, its
sensitive and harmonious balance of colour and form and its
inherent dynamic qualities. Accordingly, it has been
enthusiastically received by collectors and has readily entered the
prestigious collections of the National Gallery of Australia,
Canberra, Art Gallery of NSW and several international collections
in Europe. She recently went completely blind, and had
utilised her daughters to undertake the ‘bones’ of her paintings
whereby she could fill in detail, but as she can no longer paint,
the value of her work has shot up in
price.
 Untitled
180 x
266cm
Acrylic on Belgian
Linen
Price
on request
 Untitled
183 x
304cm
Acrylic on Belgian
Linen
Price on request
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