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Dorothy Robinson Napangardi
c. 1958
Region: Yuendumu, Alice Springs – Northern Territory
Language: Warlpiri
Born in the early 1950’s in the bush in the Mina Mina area, west of Mt Doreen and Yuendumu, 400 kilometers north of Alice Springs, Dorothy remembers her early childhood days in the bush surrounded by her closely-knit extended family as a time of unconditional happiness and freedom.
It was in Alice Springs in 1987 that Napangardi began painting a little later than the Warlpiri living at Yuendumu. At the government art gallery, the Centre for Aboriginal Artists and Craftsmen, Napangardi embarked on an artistic career, along with Polly Watson Napangardi and several other women living in ‘town’.
In 1997 in what proved to be a significant artistic shift, Dorothy Napangardi switched her attention away from the bush plum and bush banana and began creating striking works of the Women's Digging Stick Dreaming that had been passed down through her patriline. These ethereal canvases, evoking Dorothy’s memories of her early life at Mina Mina prior to everyday contact with the colonizers have become her signature works.
This change in focus culminate in Napangardi winning the coveted first prize in the 2001 Telstra award for a black and white work entitled Salt on Mina Mina.
Dorothy Napangardi is now established as a professional artist who fully supports herself and her daughter by her work. As a Warlpiri woman Napangardi says that her family is the most important thing for her.
Extract: Dancing up Country The art of Dorothy Napangardi, Museum of Contemporary Art
