Yukultji Napangati facts for kids

Yukultji Napangati is an Aboriginal Australian artist. She is a painter who works with the Papunya Tula group of artists. She is one of many female painters who started creating art after the first male Papunya Tula artists.

About Yukultji Napangati

Yukultji Napangati was born in the early 1970s near Lake Mackay in the Gibson Desert of Western Australia. For the first part of her life, she lived as a nomad, which means her family moved from place to place. She learned a lot about her homeland, including its plants, animals, weather, and seasons.

Later, her family met people from the outside world. This led Yukultji to discover painting. Today, Yukultji is a famous Aboriginal artist whose work is known around the world.

Her Family and Early Life

Yukultji is the daughter of Nanu Nangala and Lanti Yukulti. She has many brothers and sisters who were part of their nomadic group. Many Pintupi people were forced to leave their land when others settled there. However, Yukultji's family managed to live far away from these new settlements.

They were known as the "lost tribe" or the Pintupi Nine. They lived in the bush, following old ways of life. They hunted animals like kangaroos and goannas, gathered plants, and lived completely separate from the outside world. Yukultji did not know about places like Kiwirrkurra or her relatives living there. She had never met anyone from outside her tribe.

Her father had briefly lived at a Christian mission in Balgo. But he ran away after getting into trouble. He decided to stay in the desert and kept his family far from towns. Yukultji's father passed away around 1980.

In October 1984, her family finally met people from outside their group. They then settled in Kiwirrkurra. Coming out of the bush, they became known as the last desert nomads. This event was big news at the time. Yukultji was 14 years old and the youngest in the group.

Adjusting to a New World

After her family came out of the desert, they experienced a completely new way of life. Yukultji felt a big culture shock. She often found new things hard to understand.

She once shared a memory: "I hopped into a car and crouched down, and I saw the trees move. I was frightened. I was scared. I jumped right off because the trees were racing around the place." During this time, she saw white people for the first time. She also started wearing clothes and eating European food.

Yukultji later married Charlie Ward Tjakamarra. They had a daughter and a son together. After Charlie passed away, Yukultji felt inspired to become more involved with art.

Papunya Tula Artists Group

Napangati started painting in the 1990s at the Papunya Tula Arts Center. This center was created in November 1972. The community became well-known because older men started painting on anything they could find. This led to the creation of a community art group.

John Kean, an art advisor, said that Papunya Tula painting came from the meeting of Aboriginal culture with European ideas about art. The art center shows the culture, history, and traditions of their community through creative work. Being together as a community and family is very important to the Papunya Tula Artists.

In 1996, Yukultji began painting at the art center with a group of women. This group included her mothers and sisters. These women were joining a painting community that had mostly been men before. Yukultji had watched her brothers and husband paint and decided to try it herself.

The women sat in circles and talked as they painted. They learned from each other and from the men. They shared old stories from their ancestors while painting on canvas. For the first time, the women had the freedom to change Western Desert art. They could also share more of their Tjukurrpa knowledge, which became their creative ideas.

Yukultji's Art Style

Napangati's art often uses simple colors that create a shimmering effect. Her main subject is "country," which refers to her homeland. Her paintings show the tough conditions of the desert. The dots and waves in her art shimmer like stars and sand.

Her work often shows Yunarla, a place west of Kiwirrkurra. She spent time camping and collecting roots there with other women. The lines, colors, and movement in her paintings show the features of these special places. Her art reflects the landscapes and how important they are.

Cara Pinchbeck, an art expert, said about Napangati's work: "Yukultji's paintings do not try to explain the landscape. Instead, they give a feeling of how huge and important it is." Napangati also paints stories and songs from her and her mother's Dreaming. These stories are about her traditional country, around Marruwa, Ngaminya, and Marrapinti.

By the early 2000s, Yukultji had gained a lot of experience. She developed her own unique style and became more confident in her art. She used lines and colors to create patterns that covered the whole canvas. Her designs often use circles within circles to show how everything is connected, both in her art and in her homeland.

Art Exhibitions and Awards

Yukultji's paintings are part of several public art collections in Australia. Her work has also been shown in over 80 exhibitions in Australia and other countries.

In 2009, Napangati traveled to New York for a special exhibition of her art. This show was a huge success for her career.

She was a finalist for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA awards) in 2006, 2009, 2010, and 2011.

In 2012, Napangati won the Alice Prize. This award is for Australian artists in Alice Springs.

In 2018, she won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting.

Also in 2018, Napangati's work was part of an exhibition called Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia. This show was at The Phillips Collection.

In 2019, US rapper Jay-Z bought one of Napangati's artworks. His wife, Beyoncé, shared a picture of it on Instagram in July 2021. The post received 3.5 million likes in just one week!

Art Collections

Yukultji Napangati's art can be found in many important collections, including:

• Art Gallery of New South Wales
• Griffith University Art Museum
• Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge
• Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
• Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia
• Milwaukee Art Museum
• National Gallery of Australia
• National Gallery of Victoria
• Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art
• Seattle Art Museum
• Toledo Museum of Art