Naata Nungurrayi

Naata Nungurrayi

Born c.1932 at the rock-hole site of Kumil, near Pollock Hills, west of Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay), in WA. Now lives and works at Kintore.

she has forged a new direction away from the austere minimalism of classic Pintupi painting established by the men, to emerge as one of Papunya Tula’s most distinctive painters.

Naata and her family walked into Papunya in the mid-1960's when they met the native welfare patrol led by Jeremy Long. She moved back to Walungurru (Kintore) when it was established as an outstation in the early 1980s.  Naata is the sister of Nancy Nungurrayi and George Tjungurrayi and the mother of Kenny Williams Tjampitjinpa and Tjitji Ross Tjampitjinpa.

Naata began painting with the Papunya Tula Artists in 1996. Along with other Pintupi women, she has forged a new direction away from the austere minimalism of classic Pintupi painting established by the men, to emerge as one of Papunya Tula's most distinctive painters.

A senior elder, her paintings refer to traditional women's law and ceremony, often depicting her country Walawala, as well as the "Marrapinta" - a sacred waterhole west of Pollock Hills. Other rock holes depicted include  "Ngaripunkunya" west of Kiwirrkurra- a stopping place for travelling ancestral wormen; "Wirrulnga" east of Kiwirrkurra and "Ngaminya" south; "Wanku" and "Piti Kutjarra" soakages northwest of Kiwirrkurra.

Her dreaming stories also depict women gathering Kampurapara (desert raisins) which are eaten straight from the plant or ground into a flour and baked. Naata records her country with "tali" (sandhills), "puli" (rock outcrops) and "punti" (vegetation).

In 1999 her work was included in Twenty Five Years and Beyond at Flinders University Art Museum and in 2000 the Art Gallery of NSW included her work in its landmark exhibition Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius. Naata is widely regarded as one of the leading women artists of the Western Desert. In 2003 her work was used as a motif on an Australian stamp.