






Ngaminya is a place that features both a rockhole and a soakage. In the Tjukurrpa, a group of ancestral women camped here after travelling from Marrapinti further west. While here they gathered edible berries known as kampurarrpa (desert raisins). They can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and made into a ball that preserves the fruit for later consumption. The circles in the painting represent these balls and probably the distinctive round boulders on the top of the Ngaminya hill formation.
Language Group: Pintupi
Date: Born 1940
Nanyuma Napangatiwas born in the vicinity of Kiwirrkurra and is the older sister of Charlie Tjapangati and Bombatu Napangati, from a family that came in from the bush in 1964. Their father was the older close brother of the well-known Papunya Tula Artist, Pinta Pinta Tjapanangka. Nanyuma began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in June 1996 and in 1999 she contributed to the Kiwirrkurra women’s painting as part of the Western Desert Dialysis Appeal. In 2000, Nanyuma traveled from Kiwirrkurra to Sydney to dance in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

NANYUMA NAPANGATI, Ngaminya, 2020
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 24 × 21 5/8 in. (61 × 55 cm). Commissioned by Richard Klingler and Jane Slatter for Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past and Present Together.
© estate of the artist licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd for Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd.

Nanyuma Napangati.
© Papunya Tula.

Mantua Nangala, Yukultji Napangati and Nanyuma Napangati working at the Papunya Tula Artists studio in Kiwirrkurra, 2015.
Photo by Henry Skerritt.