Language Group: Warlpiri
Dates: 1949-2020

Michael Jagamara Nelson AM was born at Pikilyi in the Northern Territory in 1949. His early life was spent living traditionally in the desert before his family moved to the settlement of Ikuntji (Haasts Bluff) and then Yuendumu where Michael attended school. He starting painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1981 and just three years later was awarded first prize in the National Aboriginal Art Awards. In 1988, his painting Possum and Wallaby Dreaming, was used as the basis for a mosaic on the forecourt of the new Australian Parliament House. In 1988, he traveled to New York with fellow artist Bill Stockman Tjapaltjarri, to create a sand sculpture as part of the exhibition Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia at the Asia Society Galleries. In 1993, Michael Nelson was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to Aboriginal Art and awarded an Australia Council Visual Arts Board Artist’s Fellowship. He was also the subject of a major monograph by Vivien Johnson in 1997.