Lupulnga is a rochkhole located south of the community of Kintore. The Peewee Tjukurrpa (Small bird Dreaming) is associated with this rockhole, as well as the Two Traveling Women Dreaming. A group of ancestral women visited this place and held ceremonies connected with the area before traveling north, eventually arriving at Walungurru (Kintore). The lines in this painting represent the string that is hand-spun from human hair, which is then used to make nyimparra (hairstring pubic coverings). Hairstring adornments are worn by both men and women during ceremonies.
This painting was included in the exhibition Dreaming their Way. Organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C it was the first exhibition focusing on the work on Indigenous Australian women artists to tour the United States.
When [my mother] painted she was laughing and smiling. Dancing and telling stories about the early days. I am happy for people to see and know her paintings and country. She painted stories about Lupul and the time when she was young. When she painted – telling the story for Lupul, she would laugh. She was happy and laughing when she was painting in Kintore at Papunya Tula.
Language Group: Ngaatjatjarra
Dates: 1922–2011
Makinti Napanangka was born at Lupul rockhole south of Kintore circa 1922. She walked with her family to Haasts Bluff in the early 1940s before later moving to the newly established Papunya Community. In the early 1970s, her family joined other Pintupi people from Papunya moving west to the outstation of Yayayi, which represented the beginnings of the Pintupi homeland movement, later completing the journey to Kintore after it was established in the early 1980s. Makinti began painting regularly for the company in April 1996, quickly affirming herself as one of the major women artists of Kintore. Her first solo exhibition in 2000 at Utopia Art Sydney was a huge success and critically acclaimed, positioning her as one of the most popular and sought-after Western Desert painters. Her artistic accomplishment was formally acknowledged when she won the 25th Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2008. Her daughters Narrabri and Jacqueline, as well as her son Ginger, have followed in Makinti’s footsteps as painters for Papunya Tula Artists. Following her death in 2011, Makinti Napanangka was posthumously appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.
MAKINTI NAPANANGKA, Lupulnga, 2001
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 60 × 48 in. (152.5 × 122.0 cm). Collection of Richard Klingler and Jane Slatter.
© estate of the artist licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd for Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd.
Makinti Napanangka.
© Papunya Tula Artists.
Makinti Napanangka at Papunya Tula Artists' Walungurru (Kintore) studio, 1997.
Photo by Paul Sweeney, courtesy of Papunya Tula Artists.