Angelina Ngal

Angelina Ngal was born c.1950. Angelina along with her famous sisters Kathleen and Poly began producing batiks in the mid 1980's and wooden sculptures, probably influenced by her late husband, the older brother of Cowboy Louie Pwerle. Angelina as formerly known as Angelina 'Pwerl' in Alyawarr language is the equivalent to Ngal in the Anmatyerr language, and it is as Angelina Ngal that she is referred to today.

She began painting as part of the CAAMA 'summer project' in 1988 -90and, already at forty years of age, was included in the first exhibition of Utopia women's paintings held in Alice Springs in 1980.

Angelina quickly adapted to painting on canvas and subsequently gained an international recognition. Her work can be seen as a contemporary dialogue or translation of the cultural geographic, social and religious components and Anmatjerre life. Her initiate renditions of country are delicately layered and be read and appreciated at a superficial level for their abstractions and painterliness. At a deeper level however, they depict the cultural and social mores of the society in which she lives.

Angelina paints her grandfather's country, Arlparra. Many of her paintings depicts the Bush plum, which she represents through a focus of dots into which she merges of minutely and painstakingly rendered coloured dots ensuring that the tiny dots are always centered, and clear. She has further extended her painting producing a range of exquisitely coloured compositions that maintain a layer of meandering related to the Bush plum, in which points of geography, knowledge of places and memories of hunting or ceremonial business, result in a subtle and textured surface that hints to the viewer of an ethereal numinous landscape.

This artist biography and photograph is copyright protected. Please view our copyright policy if you would like to reproduce this material.