Ningura Napurrula

Ningura Napurrula was a young woman in her mid-twenties when she took her first journey out of the Gibson Desert in 1962 to Papunya with the Northern Territory Welfare Branch patrol. After their son received medical treatment at Papunya, Napurrula and her husband Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi were transported by another patrol back to their own country, close to the present-day site of Kiwirrkurra. The following year, Napurrula and Tjungurrayi walked back to Papunya with their whole family group as part of a general migration of Pintupi people from their country. Napurrula first painted in her own right in 1995, in the second year of the Haasts Bluff/Kintore women’s painting project. Following Tjungurrayi’s death in 1998, her painting activity increased dramatically. Napurrula’s work is strongly charged with the seriousness of women’s business, echoed in the distinctive paintings of fellow Papunya Tula Artists, Makinti Napanangka and Inyuwa Nampitjinpa.