Makinti Napanangka

b. 1930, Lake MacDonald, Central Australia

Makinti Napanangka was born in 1930 in the Lake MacDonald region of Central Australia. She moved to Haasts Bluff with her husband, where she lived until Papunya was established in 1960. Makinti began painting in 1995, when she participated in the Kintore/Haasts Bluff collaborative canvas project, ‘Minyma Tjukurrpa’. The interest in Pintupi women’s art arose in the mid-1990s, quite late in the history of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. It was in 1996 that Makinti Napanangka, along with her cousin and painting companion, Tatali Nangala, began painting for Papunya Tula Artists.

Makinti Napanangka’s paintings often consist of interwoven, lightly coloured lines, which represent the hairstring skirts of the ‘Kungka Kutjarra’ or Two Women, who feature prominently in Pintupi ancestral stories. These hairstring skirts are worn by Pintupi women in their ceremonies when they reaffirm these mythological stories through dance and song.

Makinti Napanangka was selected for inclusion in the retrospective exhibition Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, held at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2000. Since then she has had four solo exhibitions, and in 2003 she was a finalist in the esteemed Clemenger Art Award held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.  She is represented in the following Collections: the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne;  the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; and the Macquarie Bank Collection, Sydney.