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Dorothy Napangardi Born: Circa 1948

Biography
Dorothy Napangardi is an Australian Aboriginal artist, one of the three thousand or so Warlpiri speakers who live in or are originally from the Tanami desert region of Central Australia. She now lives in Alice Springs and Sydney. She was born circa 1956 in the area called Mina Mina and grew up in the settlement town of Yuendumu where her father is still a senior lawgiver. She had little formal schooling, but was instructed in the historic Dreaming of her people. “Dreaming” is an imprecise English translation of the Warlpiri word Jukurrpa, which describes the origins and journeys of ancestral beings in the land, and identities the sacred places where the spirits presently reside. The Jukurrpa theme, generally, is one of the inseparability of the self from the environment, and the stories usually include traveling. A Warlpiri speaker is quoted in a catalog of Napangardi’s paintings: “To me, Dorothy’s work is like Yapa [people] running through and across their country, moving across their pathways when they go traveling. That’s what it reminds me of, Yapa crossing paths, crossing one another’s pathways as they go traveling.”

Auction Record
AU$129,000.00
97 Auction results in the last 5 years.

Collections
National 118th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards,
Darwin, NT.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT, Australia
National Gallery of Victoria, Victoria, Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia, South Australia, Australia
Museum and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
Queensland Museum, QLD, Australia
Linden Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.
The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica, LA, USA.
The Kaplan-Levi Collection, Seattle, USA.
The Vroom Collection, The Netherlands
The Erskine Collection, NSW, Australia
The Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth, WA, Australia
The Australia Council Collection, Sydney, Australia
South Australian Festival Centre Foundation, Adelaide, Australia
The Homesglen Institute of TAFE Collection, Victoria, Australia

Awards
2001 First Prize, '18th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award', Darwin, NT.
1999 Highly Commended 16th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Darwin, N.T.
1998 Northern Territory Art Award, Alice Springs, N.T.
1991 Best Painting in European Media, 8th National Aboriginal Art Award, Darwin, N.T.
One of 3 Aboriginal artist to have ever had a solo show at the MCA

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