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This website was developed for the exhibition Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past & Present Together: Fifty Years of Papunya Tula Artists that was on view at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia from 2021-23 and the Embassy of Australia in Washington, DC in 2024. It was made possible by our creative partnership with Papunya Tula Artists and the generous support of UVA Arts Council. Site design by Urban Fugitive for V21 Artspace.
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Pansy Napangardi

Men's Dreaming at Ilpili
1991

In this artwork, Pansy depicts the narrative of Jintirr-Jintirrpa, a small ancestral bird who warns two old men of an impending storm. Napangardi focuses on the vegetation and geography of the site, evoking its sandhills, spinifex grass and Ilpili trees in a shimmering cascade of overlaying dots.  Ilpili is the name of a hill site with a natural spring and associated rock hole to the west of the Papunya community. Ilpili is the Pintupi word for the "inland teatree" (Melaleuca glomerata), which grows abundantly along the creek line in and around the area of the spring. The spring at Ilpili has served as a critical source for water for the Pintupi in times of severe drought. Ilpili is also a major ceremonial center: a number of Tjukurrpa narratives are associated with it and the surrounding region.

I saw my uncle painting and I asked him, can you tell me my mother's Dreamings. I want to put them down. He started to tell me how: "You can put them like that, this is your mother's, this is your Dreaming, two women and one old man." I started, I was doing a painting. First I was painting but with glue and beans. After that I left glue and beans. I asked, "Where's my grandfather's country? They tell me, "Your grandfather's Dreaming at the Hillbilly and your mother's one is Bush Mulberry." So I paint my grandfather's, and my mothers Dreaming, that's all I am doing.

PANSY NAPANGARDI

Language Groups: Luritja and Warlpiri
Date: Born 1940

Pansy Napangardi and her family relocated to Papunya in the 1960s, where she witnessed the rise of the early painting movement. At Papunya, she would regularly observe the older artists working, such as Kaapa Tjampitjinpa and Johnny Warangkula. Because Papunya Tula Artists could not initially support women painters, Pansy painted independently until 1983. When finally accepted into the company, she became one of its leading painters. Unlike later women artists who adopted a more gestural style of painting, Pansy drew upon the established style of men painters at Papunya, while adding her own distinctive color and character. In 1989, Pansy was awarded first prize in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards.

Are you related to this artist? Are you a scholar of artwork from the Papunya Tula movement? Please contact us at kluge-ruhe@virginia.edu if you would like to add something to this page or see something that is missing or incorrect.
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