Tjunkiya Napaltjarri

Tjunkiya Napaltjarri is one of the oldest in the Western Desert. She was born around 1928 in the area north-west of Walungurru (known as Kintore, Northern Territory) and left us in 2009. She therefore lived a good part of her life in a very traditional way (without contact with the white man). It is his mother (a woman born in Umari, a sacred site which is the main theme of Tjunkiya's paintings) who takes him to Haasts Bluff. From there she joins Papunya then regains her ancestral lands after the return of the lands to the Aborigines.

Tjunkiya started painting in 1995 and has since participated in numerous exhibitions.

She became the second wife of Toba Tjakamarra, who, like her own Shorty Lungkata Tjungurrayi, was a prominent founding father of the Papunya Tula art movement, Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula.

Like a number of other women in the central and western desert of the region, Tjunkiya was introduced to painting through the Minyma Tjukurrpa (Women's Dream) painting project in the mid-1990s. Wintjiya and other women, she participated in a painting camp in 1994 which resulted in "a series of very large collaborative canvases of the group's shared dreams". Western Desert artists such as Tjunkiya frequently paint "dreams", or stories, for which they have responsibility or rights.

In 1996 Tjunkiya was featured in the group exhibition Papunya Women at the Utopia Art Gallery in Sydney, while in 2000 she had an exhibition at the William Mora Galleries in Melbourne and was included in the major exhibition of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius.

Tjunkiya Napaltjarri's striking paintings reveal shapes when color is scraped across the surface, a method unique among Papunya Tula Artists.

Tjunkiya's works are held in major private collections, such as Nangara (also known as the Ebes Collection). His work has been acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. In France, it is represented in the collections of the Musées du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris.

"I think of Umari, Tjukurrpa (the dream), when I paint, it's my mother's country. My mother and my father, I lost them, poor things. When I paint, they are always in my mind. I remember them and the good old days when we were in Umari. When I paint, I feel happy, I don't feel sick, I don't feel any pain. I feel strong and healthy, as if I was a young girl again. Before, I put dots on my canvas like other women painters. Now, I put the paint in my own way. Like this [gestures], with two sticks, I push and I scratch the color. "

His works are present in prestigious collections:

Australia:

National Gallery of Australia

Araluen Collection (Alice Springs)

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Campbelltown City Art Gallery

Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

National Gallery of Victoria

Supreme Court of the Northern Territory

Artbank

International :

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, U.S.A

Quai Branly Museum - Jacques Chirac, Paris, France