MITJILI NAPURRULA (1945-2019)
Original Acrylic On Canvas
(Can be Hung Vertically or Horizontally)
Title: Uwalki - Watiya Tjuta & Irantji Dreaming with Wildflowers
Image Size: 188cm x 145.5cm
Year Painted: 2007
Condition: Excellent
Provenance: Dacou Gallery, Ultimo, NSW - Ref DG 08299
Stretched and Ready to Hang.
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Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia
ABN 36 561 407 649
Mitjili Napurrula was born in 1945 at Papunya, 200 kilometres West of Alice Springs. She was the daughter of Tupa Tjakamarra (now deceased) and Tjunkiya Napatljarri. Her mother, Tjunkayi Napaltjarri, was a Pintupi/Luritja woman from Yumari.
Like many of her generation, Mitjili witnessed the genesis of the Papunya Tula art movement and the artistic contribution made by members of her immediate family. Mitjili's brother, Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula, was one of the founding members of the Papunya Tula Artists cooperative.
Mitjili grew up in Papunya and moved to Haasts Bluff with her late husband Long Tom Tjapanangka in the late 1980’s during the outstation movement. The couple started painting at Ikuntji in 1992 with the opening of Ikuntji Women’s Centre, both contributing significantly to the emerging art movement there. She gained an international following after winning the Alice Springs Art Prize in 1999.
In Mitjili's winning painting, Untitled (1999), coagulated white pigment eddies around abstract forms that refer to the Watiya Tjuta (desert oak/spearwood trees) used to make kulatas (spears). The tightly structured patterning of the key motifs and bold use of colour demonstrated the artist’s confidence in her individual artistic vision within a family of superlative artists - and the cultural heritage that continues to inform the myriad expressions of Western Desert artists.
The Watiya Tjuta in Mitjili's paintings is her father’s Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) in Ilyingaungau country (Gibson Desert).
Mitjili and her brother, Tjupurrula had the same father, Tupa Tjakamarra, from whom they both inherited the right to paint works related to Ilyingaungau. This site, south of Walungurru (Kintore), some 520 kilometres west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), is where the artist’s Mutikatjirri ancestors assembled their kulata (spears) for a conflict with the Tjukula men. Allusive works that refer to the straightening of kulata by Tjupurrula are among the landmark paintings of the movement’s history.
Mitjili lived at an outstation close to Papunya where she continued to paint in her later years, along side her family and fellow artists such as Ann Lane nee Dixon. Mitjili passed away in April 2019.
