Biography

Studio Australis acknowledges that the artist referenced below has passed and respectfully recognises the Aboriginal cultural protocols observed by many communities regarding the naming of deceased persons. To ensure consistency with certificates of authenticity, museum records and published references, Studio Australis continues to use the artist's most widely recognised professional name. Pintupi, c. 1935–2010 Nancy Ross Nungurrayi was a senior Pintupi artist born around 1935 in the Pollock Hills area of Western Australia’s desert country. She was the sister of Naata Nungurrayi and George “Hairbrush” Tjungurrayi, and lived at Walungurru / Kintore. Nancy began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996, joining the important later generation of Pintupi women painters whose work extended the Western Desert movement through women’s ceremonial and ancestral subjects. Dreaming, Country & Ceremony: Pulyulnga / Women’s Stories Nancy’s paintings are associated with Pulyulnga, a water soakage site near Kiwirrkura, and with women’s ceremonial stories connected to Pintupi Country. Her works also relate to sandhill country, rockholes, ancestral travel and the cultural geography of the Western Desert. Style and Technique Nancy’s paintings often use dense fields of dotting, repeated circular forms and fine linear movement to map soakages, sandhills and women’s ceremonial sites. Her strongest works have the disciplined surface associated with Papunya Tula painting: the image is carried through rhythm, spacing and accumulation rather than overt figuration. Nancy’s Palette Nancy worked with restrained Western Desert palettes, often using black, white, red, ochre, cream and other earth tones. In many works, tonal contrast is used to define sites and pathways within the dotted field. For the Collector Nancy Ross Nungurrayi painted through Papunya Tula Artists and belongs to a significant Pintupi family lineage through Naata Nungurrayi and George “Hairbrush” Tjungurrayi. She participated with other Walungurru women in collaborative Pintupi painting projects from the late 1990s. Her work is held in public collections including the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of New South Wales.