Gallery Gondwana Dorothy Napangardi Biography

Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

Biography

Artist: Dorothy Napangardi Born: c 1950 – 2013 Region: Tanami Desert, Western & Central Desert Significant Country: Mina Mina Language Group: Warlpiri / Pintupi

All of our dancing belongs there… When I paint I think of the old days, as a happy little girl knowing my grand-father’s Dreaming.

I have never seen Dorothy Napangardi dance in fact myself. She danced ritually in 1999 when she visited Mina Mina, the sacred place of her birth, for the first time as an adult. It was here that her aunties painted her with relevant body designs and instructed her in the story and the dance relating to it. She danced ‘publicly’ in Alice Springs in 2000 at her exhibition opening, marking the tenth anniversary of Gallery Gondwana. But her painted landscapes certainly dance. Source: Djon Mundine OAM, Australian National University, Canberra Dancing Up Country – The art of Dorothy Napangardi, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Australia.

Dancing on Claypans - Mina Mina 1999 Left to right: Dorothy Napangardi, Nancy Napanangka (behind), Ena Nakamarra, Sarah Napanangka, Mitjili Napanangka and Minnie Napanangka Photographer: Christine Lennard © Gallery Gondwana Published: Dancing Up Country - The art of Dorothy Napangardi Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Revision Date: 1 November 2019 © GALLERY GONDWANA • PO BOX 3770, ALICE SPRINGS, NT, 0871 • Ph: +61 417 757 475 ACN 009 652 046 • ABN 75 009 652 046 www.gallerygondwana.com.au

Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

DOROTHY NAPANGARDI One of the leading artists of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement, Dorothy Napangardi was highly experimental and a leader in her field. Reducing her paint palette to minimal colour and often using just black and white, saw her work take on another dimension, whether it was the smaller delicate works, limited edition prints or huge canvases, she had people clamouring for her artwork. Napangardi’s work is highly sought after by both collectors and curators worldwide. Her paintings and prints have been widely exhibited and are in all national collections within Australia and in major collections worldwide including most recently the MET, New York. Napangardi had the honour of being the 2nd indigenous artist to be given a solo survey exhibition at the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Sydney in 2002, when it showcased 11 - year painting span from 1991. She was awarded the Telstra National Aboriginal Art Award twice – for the overall category in 2001 and for Best Painting in Western Media in 1991. She was also awarded the Northern Territory Art Award in 1998. The subject matter for Napangardi’s paintings is her ancestral country, Mina Mina. Without any traditional iconography from her familial lines, creating her own innovative language to portray her country. Dorothy's paintings are created by an intricate network of lines that collide and implode on top of each other creating a play of tension and expansion, transporting the viewer through a myriad of intersections. Her view is constantly changing: one painting giving an aerial perspective; the next as if she has placed a microscope to the ground. Like many aboriginal people from the bush, there is no document that shows their date of birth, although Dorothy has often been shown to be born in c1956. Those close to her question this, as talks with Dorothy about her early years, place the date of birth being c1950. She was born in Mina Mina, to the west of Yuendumu, approximately 420 km north-west of Alice Springs, where she lived a traditional lifestyle until the age of 11 years when her family first made contact with white settlement. Since the mid-late 1980’s, Dorothy resided in Alice Springs. From 1990 onwards, she painted full time in her own studio at Gallery Gondwana. With a very individual painting style that she developed by elaborating on the traditional designs of the kurawarri (dreaming), Napangardi’s paintings focus on this ancestral country, Mina Mina , which is a highly significant sacred site particularly for women, as it is the point of origin for Karntakurlangu Jukurrpa (Women's Dreaming) for not only the Warlpiri but also for the Kukutja whose traditional lands are to the west. It was at Mina Mina that during Jukurrpa (the creation era) digging sticks emerged from the ground which the women took up as they commenced their journey along the dreaming route travelling east. Today these digging sticks are represented by the kurrkara (desert oaks) at the site. Mina Mina consists of two large claypans with several mulju (water soakages). Her kinship responsibility is to her subsection group of Napanangka/Napangardi. Each custodian must know the songs, dances, rituals and body paint designs to ensure that this knowledge is passed on to their nieces as is the obligation of traditional law. Artists often refer to this as “keeping the Dreaming strong”. In turn her five daughters will learn by watching and listening to their mother, aunties and grandparents singing the song cycles that belong to the country she paints.

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Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

Dorothy Napangardi - Karntakurlangu (Belonging to Women) Karntakurlangu is one of the most extensive and significant women's Jukurrpa (dreaming) belonging to the Warlpiri. The works by Dorothy Napangardi depict the ceremonial site of origin for the Jukurrpa, known as Mina Mina, the artist’s custodial country, located near Lake Mackay in the Tanami Desert, north of Yuendumu in the Northern Territory. During the creation era ancestral women of the Napangardi and Napanangka sub-section groups (aunt / niece relationship, in which knowledge is passed from one generation to another) gathered to perform the ceremonies and take-up ceremonial digging sticks (kuturu) that had emerged from the ground. A large stand of Desert Oaks (Allocasuarina decaisneana) now grow where these digging sticks emerged from the ground. The Jukurrpa women then proceeded east transiting the vast expanse of Walpiri tribal land, performing rituals of song and dance, creating the environment as it is today. The women travel across the landscape, stopping to hunt, dance and sing. As each reconnects both individually and together with their place the travelling tracks converge and coalesce. It is here that we find the key to Warlpiri art - it is the journey that encompasses the creation and thereafter the renewal of the country and ones connection to the land.

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Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

EXHIBITIONS 2018 Dorothy Napangardi | And They Danced Their Way Across Country; a retrospective: remembering the artist (20 October - 10 November 2018), Cooee Art Gallery in conjunction with Gallery Gondwana, Paddington NSW Australia 2018 The Limited Edition Works of Dorothy Napangardi, Online Exhibition, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT Australia 2018 Walkabout: The Art of Dorothy Napangardi (commenced Sat May 5 2018 - ongoing), The Seattle Art Museum (SAM), WA, USA 2018 Honouring Dorothy Napangardi, Online Exhibition, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT Australia 2017 Along the Lines (1 Feb-4 Mar), Group Exhibition, Fireworks Gallery, Newstead QLD Australia 2016-17 As Far As The Eye Can See (12 Nov 2016 – 15 Jan 2017), curated by Rilka Oakley in association with the Print Council of Australia’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba NSW Australia 2014 Melbourne Art Fair, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne VIC Australia 2014 Cross Over, Merricks House Art Gallery, Merricks VIC Australia 2013 Australia at the Royal Academy (21 Sep 2013 – 8 Dec 2013), Curator Kathleen Soriano and Director of the National Gallery of Australia Ron Radford on ‘Australia’, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK 2013 Mina Mina Maranoa (31 Jan-30Mar), Joanne Currie Nalingu & Dorothy Napangardi, Fireworks Gallery, Newstead QLD Australia 2012 18th Biennale of Sydney: all our relations, Sydney NSW Australia 2012 ‘Australian Contemporary Indigenous Art Now II’, Chiaroscuro Gallery, Santa Fe, USA 2012 ‘Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kaplan & Levi Collection’, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, USA 2012 From the Bush II (Desert to Island), Group Exhibition featuring Dorothy Napangardi, Judy Watson Napangardi & Yessie Mosby (Mar-Apr), Fireworks Gallery, Newstead QLD Australia 2011-12 ‘Spirit of the land’ (12 Nov 2011 – 12 Feb 2012), McClelland Gallery+sculpture Park, VIC; Hamilton Art Gallery, VIC; Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs NT; Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide SA; Benalla Art Gallery, VIC; Tweed River Art Gallery, NSW; Penrith Regional Gallery, NSW; Newcastle Region Art Gallery, NSW, Australia 2011 In Black & White, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA Australia 2010 All is Calm, FireWorks Gallery, Brisbane QLD Australia 2010 ‘Nexus – A collaboration in print from Central Australia and Fiji’, New prints from Dorothy Napangardi, her daughter Julie Nangala Robinson, Mitjili Napanangka and Rusiate Lali. The Gallery, Charles Darwin University campus, Darwin NT Australia 2009 The same river twice: part 2, ‘Dorothy Napangardi / John Reynolds’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane QLD Australia 2008 ‘Custodians’ Collection of Etchings and Screenprints, Co Published by Basil Hall Editions, Nomad Art and Alison Kelly Gallery (Travelling exhibition), Australia 2008 ‘Melbourne Art Fair’, Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne VIC Australia 2008 Women’s Law, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle WA Australia 2008 Dorothy Napangardi and Julie Nangala Robinson (July 18 – August 16, 2008), Gallery Gondwana, Sydney NSW Australia 2008 ‘Divas of the Desert’, Gallery Gondwana, Sydney and Alice Springs NT Australia 2008 ‘Handle with Care’, Adelaide Biennale, Art Gallery of South Australia, SA Australia 2008 Memories of Country (joint exhibition with Dorothy Napangardi, Gallery Gondwana, Sydney NSW Australia 2008 ‘LILLE ART FAIR’, Salon d’Art Contemporain, Grand Palais, Lille, France

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Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

2007 Country in Mind (Oct-Dec), Dorothy Napangardi & Yvonne Mills-Stanley, Fireworks Gallery, Newstead QLD Australia 2007 ‘The Best of the Best’, Framed Gallery, Darwin NT Australia 2007 ‘Divas of the Desert’, Gallery Gondwana, Sydney, NSW and Alice Springs NT Australia 2007 Dorothy Napangardi Etchings and screenprints 2001-2006 (28 June – 31 July 2007), Northern Editions, Darwin NT and Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT Australia 2007 The Story of Australian Printmaking 1801-2005 (30 March – 3 June 2007), National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra ACT Australia 2006 ’Journey to Mina Mina’, Gallery Gondwana, Sydney NSW Australia 2006 Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne VIC Australia 2006 ‘Dreaming Their Way’ – Australian Aboriginal Women Painters, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA 2006 ‘Hosfelt Gallery New York Preview’, Hosfelt Gallery, New York, USA 2005-06 Dorothy Napangardi (3 December 2005 - 21 January 2006), Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, USA (in association with Gallery Gondwana, Australia) 2005 ‘Imagined Worlds – Willful Invention and the Printed Image 1470-2005’, AXA Gallery, New York, USA 2005 ‘Winter Group Show’, Crown Point Press, San Francisco, USA 2005 The Women’s Show (May 11-June 4, 2005), Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne VIC Australia 2004 Mina Mina and Pirlinyanu (23 October – 5 December 2004), Holmes à Court Gallery (in association with Gallery Gondwana), Cowaramup WA Australia 2004 Pushing Boundaries; Contemporary Women's Art (9 November – 4 December 2004), Gallery Gondwana, Danks Street, Waterloo / Sydney NSW Australia 2004 Melbourne Art Fair, Melbourne VIC Australia 2004 ‘Ngati Jinta – One Mother’, Gallery Gondwanaat the Depot Gallery, Sydney NSW Australia 2004 Dorothy Napangardi: Mina Mina Country (18 November – 13 December 2004), Crown Point Gallery, San Francisco, USA 2003 ‘Collectors Show’, Gallery Gondwana at The Depot Gallery, Sydney NSW Australia 2002-03 ‘Dancing Up Country: The Art of Dorothy Napangardi’ – Asialink, The University of Melbourne (in partnership with MCA, Sydney), Curator Vivienne Webb, Melbourne, VIC, Australia and touring Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Sydney (10 Dec 2002 – 9 Mar 2003), Vietnam Fine Arts Museum Hanoi (22 Apr 2003 – 3 May 2003), National Art Gallery Kuala Lumpur (12 May 2003 – 15 Jun 2003) 2002-03 ‘Dancing Up Country: The Art of Dorothy Napangardi’ (10 December 2002 to 9 February 2003) – Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Sydney NSW Australia 2002 ‘Kana-kurlangu’ Dorothy Napangardi – Gallery Gondwana at The Depot Gallery, Sydney NSW 2002 Melbourne Art Fair 2002, Melbourne VIC Australia 2002 Indecorous Abstraction – Contemporary Women Painters, Light Sq. Gallery AIT ARTS, Adelaide SA Australia 2002 ‘Native Title Business – Contemporary Indigenous Art ‘National Travelling Exhibition, Gurang Land Council (Aboriginal Corporation), QLD Australia 2002 ‘One Mother’, Dorothy Napangardi and Sabrina Nangala, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT Australia 2001 ‘Dorothy Napangardi’, New Paintings, Vivien Anderson Gallery, VIC Australia 2001 31st Alice Prize, Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs NT Australia 2001 ‘Masterwork’, Vivien Anderson Gallery, VIC Australia 2001 ‘18th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award’, Darwin NT Australia 2001 ‘Mina Mina’, Solo, Dorothy Napangardi – Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT Australia Dorothy Napangardi Page 5 of 8

Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

2001 ‘Dreamtime: The Light and the Dark’, Sammlung Essl, Klosterneuburg, Vienna, Austria 2001 ‘Country After Rain’, Framed – The Darwin Gallery, Darwin NT Australia 2001 'alice.fitzroy@af', Alliance Francaise de Canberra and French Embassy, Canberra ACT Australia 2000-01 ‘The Art of Place Exhibition’, Australian Heritage Commission, Old Parliament House, Canberra ACT Australia 2000 ‘Melbourne Art Fair 2000’, Melbourne VIC Australia 2000 ‘Songlines: Walala Tjapaltjarri & Dorothy Napangardi’, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London, UK 2000 ‘Dorothy Napangardi and Walala Tjapaltjarri, Adelaide Festival, Gallery Australis, SA Australia 2000 ‘17th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award’, Darwin NT Australia 2000 ‘Recent Paintings by Dorothy Napangardi, Vivian Anderson Gallery, Melbourne VIC Australia 2000 ‘Dorothy Napangardi’, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney NSW Australia 2000 ‘5th National Indigenous Heritage Art Award’, Australian Heritage Commission, Canberra ACT Australia 1999 ‘Painting the Desert’, Alliance Francaise de Canberra and French Embassy, Canberra ACT Australia 1999 ‘The Redlands Westpac Art Prize’, Mosman Art Gallery, NSW Australia 1999 ‘My Country - Journey of our Ancestors’, Ancient Earth Indigenous Art, Cairns QLD Australia 1999 ‘16th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award’, Darwin NT Australia 1999 Recent works by Dorothy Napangardi’, Chapman Gallery, Canberra ACT Australia 1999 ‘Recent works by Dorothy Napangardi and Walala Tjapaltjarri’, Vivian Anderson Gallery, Melbourne VIC Australia 1999 ‘Treading Softly', Chapman Gallery, Canberra ACT Australia 1998 Northern Territory Art Award, Alice Springs NT Australia 1998 ‘Warlpiri Women’, Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT Australia 1998 ‘Napangardi Dreaming - Ceremony and Song’, Hogarth Gallery, Sydney NSW Australia 1998 ‘15th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award’, Darwin NT Australia 1991 ‘8th National Aboriginal Art Award’, Darwin NT Australia

COLLECTIONS ‘the Met’ (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York, USA SAM (Seattle Art Museum), Seattle, Washington DC, USA MCA Collection (Museum of Contemporary Art), Sydney NSW Australia The Kaplan-Levi Collection, Seattle, USA National Gallery of Victoria, VIC Australia National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ACT Australia Art Gallery of South Australia, SA Australia Queensland Museum, QLD Australia Museum and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin NT Australia National 18th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Darwin NT Australia The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, LA, USA The Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth WA Australia Musee des Confluences, Lyon, France The Holmes a’ Court Collection, Perth WA Australia Isibashi Foundation – The Bridgestone Museum, Tokyo, Japan The LeWitt Collection, Chester, Connecticut, USA

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Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

The Australia Council Collection, Sydney NSW Australia South Australian Festival Centre Foundation, Adelaide SA Australia The Homesglen Institute of TAFE Collection, VIC Australia The Erskine Collection, NSW Australia The Vroom Collection, The Netherlands The Kingston Collection, UK Linden Museum, Stuttgart, Germany Gallery Gondwana Collection, Alice Springs NT Australia Araluen Art Centre Collection, Alice Springs NT Australia

AWARDS 2001 First Prize, ‘18th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award’, Darwin NT Australia 1999 Highly Commended, 16th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Darwin NT Australia 1998 Northern Territory Art Award, Alice Springs NT Australia 1991 Best Painting in European Media, 8th National Aboriginal Art Award, Darwin NT Australia

PUBLICATIONS 2016 MCA Collection (Museum of Contemporary Art), Sydney NSW Australia 2010 Spirit in the Land – McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park, Langwarrin, VICT – Education Resource – Primary and Secondary Schools 2009 50 Most Collectable Artists, Australian Art Collector magazine 2009 Relationscapes – Movement, Art, Philosophy by Erin Manning , The MIT Pres, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, ISBN 978-0-262-13490-3 2008 Beyond Sacred – Recent paintings from Australia’s remote Aboriginal communities. The Collection of Colin and Elizabeth Laverty. Published by Hardie Grant Books, 85 High Street, Prahran, VIC, Australia 3181 2008 New Beginnings – Classic Paintings from the Corrigan Collection of 21st Century Aboriginal Art By Emily McCulloch Childs, Ross Gibson. Published by McCulloch & McCulloch ISBN 9780980449440 2006 Dreaming Their Way – Australian Aboriginal Women Painters, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA Published by Scarla Publishers Ltd, Northburgh House, London, UK ISBN 1 85759 442 8 2006 Magical Secrets about Thinking Creatively – The Art of Etching and the Truth of Life, Kathan Brown – Crown Point Press. Published by AXA Gallery, Distributed by International Print Center, New York, USA ISBN 3 7913 3654 1 2005 Imagined Worlds – Willful Invention and the Printed Image 1470-2005 Published by AXA Gallery, Distributed by International Print Center, New York, USA ISBN 0 9774239 0 5 2004 Overview – Making Prints with Dorothy Napangardi, Crown Point Press, Newsletter, November 2004 2004 Our Country, Our Art – Welcome to the Art of Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Artists Published by POSCO Art Museum, Korea ISBN 0 2737 3283 2002 Dancing up Country – The Art of Dorothy Napangardi Published by Museum of Contemporary Art, Circular Quay, Sydney, NSW, Australia Bibliography. ISBN 1 875632 82 4

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Representing Contemporary Aboriginal Art since 1990

OTHER 2016 “Eight Paintings by Leading Aboriginal Artists Enhance The Met’s Contemporary Art Holdings through Promised Gift from Robert Kaplan and Margaret Levi”, The Met, New York, USA (14 July 2016)

– Dorothy Napangardi is one of the eight artists: Dorothy Napangardi (born Yuendumu, ca. 1950– 2013), Karntakurlangu Jukurrpa, 2002. Dorothy Napangardi enrolled in the Institute for Aboriginal Development in Papunya in 1990 and learned to use western painting materials to create intricate, brilliantly colored representations of bush vegetation. Karntakurlangu Jukurrpa (2002) exemplifies her highly original and experimental mature work imagery to abstract compositions in a reduced palette.

2013 The 50th Edition of the Ermenegildo Zegna Wool Tropies held at the Royal Hall of Industries, Moore Park Australia (23nd April 2013) – featuring the pied-de-poule fabric from Australian wool produced by Lanificio in the 60s and currently re-interpreted in Trofeo Natural Comfort - models and actors including Chris Hemsworth (Australian actor) and Daniel Henney (Korean actor) wore tie and pochette made from printed fabrics inspired by aboriginal “dot art” paintings, realized by artist Dorothy Napangardi; a tribute to the Australian aboriginal culture.

2009 Almanac: The Gift of Ann Lewis AO, MCA - 8 December 2009 to 18 April 2010. (Touring Australian and regional galleries until 2013). The Gift includes a range of artworks from different times and locations, including early works by Rosalie Gascoigne from the mid 1970s to paintings by Aboriginal artists from remote communities and photographic series by artists such as Rosemary Laing and Jon Lewis. Other artists included in the collection are Hany Armanious, Mikala Dwyer, Sally Gabori, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rosella Namok, Dorothy Napangardi Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda, Robert Rauschenberg, Neil Roberts, Ricky Swallow, Judy Watson, Louise Weaver and Anne Zahalka.

PRESS / NEWS RELEASE The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) are hosting a Dorothy Napangardi retrospective exhibition “Walkabout: The Art of Dorothy Napangardi” that commenced in May 2018 and is ongoing. Blue Mountains Cultural Centre with the Blue Mountains City Art Gallery are taking the exhibition “As far as the eye can see” on the road, scheduled to start in 2018 and touring until 2020.

Dorothy Napangardi standing on ‘Country’

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