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Old Mick Namarari Japaltjarri |
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Born
c. 1926 at Marnpi in the sandhill country south-west of Mt. Rennie.
According to Tindale's records, the family was camped near Putarti Spring,
south-west of Mt Leibig, when encountered in 1932. Mick remembers as
a little boy walking east to Haasts Bluff with is family to collect
rations of flour, brown sugar, honey, jam and square tins of tobacco.
For the next decade the family worked as stickman on various stations,
including Tempe Downs and Areyonga in this period. He also married his
first wife at Haasts Bluff.
He was serving on the Papunya Council when Geoffrey Bardon arrived in Papunya and with fellow councilor Johnny Warangkula soon made his interest in painting known to the obliging art teacher. He remembered painting on anything - any piece of prepared timber in the settlement was used. During these early years, Mick traveled to Sydney with Geoffrey Bardon for the making of Geoffrey's film, "Mick and the Moon", about the artist and his work. Old Mick was one of a few Pintupi who stayed on in Papunya for some years after the majority of their people had made the move back to Kintore and their homelands. Painting prolifically in this period of the early '80s, he traveled to Sydney with Nosepeg and Old Tutuma in 1981 for what was probably the first 'renegade' exhibition of Western Desert Painting, mounted at Sid's Darlinghurst, in support of an Aboriginal controlled health service at Papunya. Later Mick Joined his country men and women at Kintore, and set up an outstation at Nyunmanu to the south-east of the settlement towards Marnpi. More recently he has lived at Njutulnya outstation with his second wife Elizabeth and their two young children. A senior man, Mick's paintings covered many Dreamings, principally Kangaroo, Water, Dingo and Mingajurra (Wild Bandicoot). In recent years his work has increasingly explored new directions and remains fresh and exciting after 20 years of continuous output. In 1989 he traveled to Melbourne for an exhibition of Papunya Tula Artists at the National Gallery of Victoria. His painting "Bandicoot Dreaming" won the 1991 National Aboriginal Art Award. In 1991 and 1992 he had solo exhibitions of his work at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne. |
