Biography

b. 1989 Anmatyerre / Pitjantjatjara Khatija Possum is a third-generation Central Desert artist from the Possum family lineage. Born in Alice Springs in 1989, she is the daughter of Michelle Possum Nungurrayi and Heath Ramzan Tjangala, and the granddaughter of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, one of the founding figures of the contemporary Western Desert painting movement. Khatija learned to paint by watching her mother and other senior family members, continuing inherited stories through her own practice. Dreaming & Country: Women’s Dreaming / Seven Sisters Khatija paints ancestral stories including Women’s Dreaming, Seven Sisters Dreaming, Grandmother’s Country and women’s body-paint designs. These works relate to women’s ceremony, songlines, ancestral travel and Country connected through her family line. Style and Technique Khatija’s paintings are built through layered dotting, strong colour fields and repeated ceremonial forms. Her larger works often combine travelling lines, circular sites and body-paint structures, holding the composition between mapped Country and women’s ceremonial design. Khatija’s Palette Khatija works with a vivid contemporary palette, often using pinks, reds, oranges, blues, purples, greens, whites and dark grounds. Her colour is generally high-key and expansive, giving the inherited stories a distinctly contemporary surface. For the Collector Khatija Possum’s work sits within the continuing Possum family lineage, following Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Michelle Possum Nungurrayi. She is represented by galleries including Kate Owen Gallery, Milpinti and Corroboree Dream Art, and has been shown internationally through Amy Kaslow Gallery in Washington, D.C. Her work is also used in licensed design collaborations through Koh Living, with artist approval.