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Ningura Papurrula Women's Ceremonies

NINGURA PAPURRULA

(Australian, c.1938- 2013)

Women's Ceremonies

2007

Synthetic polymer paint on canvass

58cm 149cm

Acquired 2007

#Inventory/Catalogue No. 109884

Women's Ceremonies, Ningura Papurrula 

Biography:

Ningura Napurrula was born at Watulka, south of Kiwirrkurra, Western Australia. She is the widow of Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi (c.1928 – 1998), a highly respected Pintupi elder who held significant knowledge of his country’s Dreaming stories.

She was a young woman in her mid-twenties when she took her first journey out of the Gibson Desert in 1962 to Papunya, during the community’s early period of settlement.

Some decades later Ninguara became part a group of elderly women from Kintore and Kiwirrkurra who began painting for Papunya Tula Artists.

Her work was included in the important “Kintore Women's Painting” exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.  In addition, her work was also profiled by Australia Post when it included artwork by five women artists.  When the new Musee du Quai Branly opened in July 2006 in Paris, Ningura is one of eight Aboriginal artists selected to have an example of their work incorporated into the architecture of the Museum, a wonderful legacy for a dynamic female desert painter.

Artwork

Ningura’s paintings depict designs associated with the rockhole sites of Palturunya and Wirrulnga, east of the Kiwirrkura Community (Mt. Webb) in Western Australia. The concentric circles represent rock holes and the arcs represent the higher rocky outcrops near the site. The U shapes represent women camped at the site.

Ningura depicts the mythological events and travels of her ancestors, the sacred sites that they passed through, and the mythological significance of the bush tucker they collected. These experiences and the history inform the current customs and ceremonial lives of these Pintupi women.

Bibliography

Kleinart, S., & Neale, M., (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture, Oxford University Press, 2000

Perkins, Hetti, Fink, Hannah (eds.), Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, Art Gallery of New South Wales in association with Papunya Tula Artists, exhibition catalogue, 2000.