Walangkura Napanangka

b. 1946, Tjiturulnga

Walangkura Napanangka was born in 1946 at Tjiturulnga, west of Walungurru (Kintore). She is the daughter of Inyuwa Nampitjinpa and Tutuma Tjapangati and sister of the Pirrmangka Napanangka. Her family was amongst a group of Pintupi people who made their way to the Ikuntji settlement (Haasts Bluff) in 1956. They walked hundreds of kilometres from west of the salt lake of Karrkurutinjinya (Lake Macdonald) to access the supplies of food and water on offer at the settlement. The family returned to their homelands community of Walungurru in 1981. 

Walangkura began her career through participating in the historic Kintore-Haasts Bluff collaborative canvas project ‘Minyma Tjukurrpa’ in 1995, and subsequently began painting for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996.  She now lives at Kiwirrkura with her husband and fellow artist Johnny Yungut Tjupurrula.

>Walangkura has exhibited extensively, including in Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2000), in Dreamscapes – Contemporary Desert Art, Mostings Hus, Frederiksberg, Denmark (2001), and in Mythology and Reality at the S.H Ervin Gallery, Sydney (2003).  Walangkura had her first solo exhibition at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 2003.  Her work is represented in the following Collections:  the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Artbank, Sydney; and The Kelton Foundation, Los Angeles, United States of America.