Paintings of the Month 2
October 2001

PANSY NAPANGARDI

"ILLIPILI ( THE WILLY WAGTAIL STORY )"
129 cm x 75 cm     Acrylic on linen     1999

$Aud5,300 + GST 10% for sales in Australia
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Dreaming

The area in this painting is a site known to the Luritja tribes as Illpili. Important ceremonies were acted out at this place back in the Dreamtime. These ceremonies set the law for this area.

At one point of time another Dreaming (Wily Wagtail) came to give the people warning of a great storm that were at hand. The people took heed and started creating wind breaks to protect the site. Today you see large stone hills almost the size of mountains that were formed from these wind breaks.

The concentric circles depict  waterholes, this underground spring which was formed by ice (Hail Storm). The hail stones struck the area with such ferocity they created a water hole. Still today even in the searing heat of the desert there is cold water available from this underground water hole.

Many important ceremonies are still held at this site today. This painting represents the women ceremony aspects of this Dreaming and site.

PANSY NAPANGARDI

Warlpiri artist, Pansy Napangardi was born in 1949 and grew up on a mission settlement at Haast’s Bluff in Central Australia. She moved to Alice Springs in 1989.

"When I was a young girl we always travelled around a lot. We'd go to a swimming hole, hunting or gathering bush tucker. Later on I saw my uncle painting and I asked him, 'Can you tell me my mother's dreaming?  I want to put them down."

She did learn those dreamings although they came through her mother’s cousin, Anmanarri Nungurrai, who sketched them out for her in the desert sand. This was the time-honoured way of passing on stories of the Jukurrpa. These are the dreamings she paints to this day. They include: Seven Sisters, Hail, Desert Raisin and Kungka Kutjara (Two Women) 

She practiced creating these stories for herself on paper and later used her designs to develop collages made from ininti seeds. These  seeds were normally used by the women to make decorative jewellery. After gaining valuable experience with  these forms, Pansy moved finally into her preferred medium, acrylic on canvas.

Since that time Pansy's paintings have received world acclaim. Today she is considered as one of the outstanding women artists of the desert movement.

Although it has been said that Aboriginal women have only been painting since  the 1980's, Pansy considers that she, like her sister Eunice Napangardi, commenced  painting earlier. She began recording her dreamings in the early 1970's at the start of the Papunya art movement. By observing Johnny Warangkula and Kaapa, two established artists, Pansy's style was gently formed. Unlike many other women artist now associated with the Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd she did not serve an apprenticeship, but began painting for herself. At that time the financial resources continued to flow to the senior initiated men who had started the movement. She sold her work privately through Alice Springs dealers until 1983 when she started painting with the Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd on a full time basis.

Pansy's work gives voice to her traditional beliefs and symbolises a triumphal  cultural statement by the once near-defeated people of the Central Australian Desert.

Her paintings are remarkable for their use of colour. Blues, greens and pinks  create a spiritual vigour and nervous energy that excite the eye. They are refreshing with their striking vitality and  diversity of shapes and patterns. Her paintings represent the fertility and glory of her traditional land, and make a statement about the unique relationship that she and her people have with that land. Pansy is an artist who constantly experiments and surprises. Her close contact with Non-Aboriginal Australians has led her in her search of new rhythms  and frontiers yet she always remains firm within the confines of Aboriginal traditions.        

Her work was seen at the 1988 Brisbane Expo as well as on the cover of 'The Inspired Dream', which was published at the same time. She has had several solo exhibitions, one of them at the Sydney Opera House, followed by the Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne. Her work has featured in many group exhibitions including  'Mythscapes' at the National Gallery Canberra and the 'Karnta' exhibition at the New South Wales Art Gallery. In  1989 Pansy Napangardi was awarded the 6th National Aboriginal Art Award and in 1993 the Northern Territory Art Award, both highly-sought after awards in the Aboriginal art world. During 1998-2000 her work is touring Australia in the successful “Tjinytjilpa” exhibition which had earlier had been shown in Washington DC.

© Jinta Desert Art 2001

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