Biography

Pintupi, b. c. 1971 Yukultji Napangati is a Pintupi artist from the Western Desert and a member of the group widely known as the Pintupi Nine. She was born near Wilkinkarra / Lake Mackay and lived a traditional nomadic life with her family until they came into Kiwirrkura in 1984. She began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996 and has become one of the most significant contemporary painters to emerge from the later Pintupi women’s painting movement. Dreaming and Country: Tali / Marrapinti Yukultji paints Country associated with Marrapinti, Marruwa, Ngaminya and the broader Wilkinkarra / Lake Mackay region. Her works are commonly titled Tali, referring to sandhills, and are connected to women’s ceremonial knowledge and the ancestral geography of Pintupi Country. Style and Technique Yukultji’s paintings are built from fine, repeated lines and dotting that extend across the canvas in dense optical fields. Her surfaces shimmer and shift, with the structure of sandhill country held through subtle changes in direction, pressure and spacing. The work is restrained but not static; its force comes from the sustained rhythm of the mark and the near-total compression of image and ground. Yukultji’s Palette Yukultji is known for restrained desert palettes, often working with ochre, red, black, white, cream and muted earth tones. Many works begin from an earth-red ground, sometimes overlaid with darker fields, allowing the fine linear patterning to carry the composition. For the Collector Yukultji Napangati has exhibited internationally, including a 2019 solo exhibition at Salon 94 Bowery, New York. She won the Alice Prize in 2012 and the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2018. Her work is held in major collections including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Hood Museum of Art, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, Harvard Art Museums, Milwaukee Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum and Toledo Museum of Art.