Makinti Napanangka

Makinti Napanangka

Makinti Napanangka passed away in January 2011. The term Kumentje is used instead of her personal name as it is customary amongst many Indigneous communities not to refer to the deceased by their original given name for some time after their death


Kumentje Napanangka was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She lived in the communities of Haasts Bluff, Papunya, and later at Kintore, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) north-east of the Lake MacDonald region where she was born, on the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.


Kumentje Napanangka began painting Contemporary Indigenous Australian art at Kintore in the mid-1990s, encouraged by a community art project. Interest in her work developed quickly, and she is now represented in most significant Australian public art galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia. A finalist in the 2003 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, Kumentje won the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2008. Her work was shown in the major Indigenous art exhibition Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.


Working in synthetic polymer on linen or canvas, Kumentje's paintings primarily take as their subjects a rockhole site, Lupul, and an Indigenous story (or "dreaming") about two sisters, known as Kungka Kutjarra. She was a member of the Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative, but her work has been described as more spontaneous than that of her fellow Papunya Tula artists.


Kumentje Napanangka's year of birth is uncertain, but a plurality of searches indicate she was born around 1930, although other sources indicate she may have been born as early as 1922 or as late as 1932 at a location described by some sources as Lupul rockhole but by one major reference work as Mangarri.All sources agree that she comes from the area of Karrkurritinytja[notes 2] or Lake MacDonald,which straddles the border between Western Australia and the Northern Territory, 50 kilometres south-west of Kintore, and about 500 kilometres west of Alice Springs.

Kumentje's first contact with white people was seeing them riding camels, when she was living at Lupul.She was one of a large group of people who walked into Haasts Bluff in the early 1940s, together with her husband Nyukuti Tjupurrula (brother of artist Nosepeg Tjupurrula and their son Ginger Tjakamarra, born around 1940. At Haasts Bluff they had a second child, Narrabri Narrapayi, in 1949. The population moved to Papunya in the late 1950s, where Kumentje had another child, Jacqueline Daaru, in 1958. She had a daughter, Winnie Bernadette, in 1961 in Alice Springs.The family moved to Kintore when it was established in the early 1980s, and by 1996 Kumentje was painting there for the Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative. Her children Ginger, Narrabri passed away in 2010 and Jacqueline also became artists, all of them painting for Papunya Tula Artists.


Physically tiny yet robust and strong, Kumentje was described as "a charmer and an irascible character", with an infectious smile.


Central Art has removed Kumentje's image in respect to her family.

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

Collections:

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales
  • Campbelltown City Art Gallery
  • Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
  • National Gallery of Australia
  • National Gallery of Victoria
  • Queensland Art Gallery
  • Macquarie Bank collection
  • Shell Aboriginal Art Fund Collection

Exhibitions:

  • 2003 – Utopia Art, Sydney
  • 2002 – Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
  • 2001 – Utopia Art, Sydney
  • 2000 – Utopia Art, Sydney


Awards:

  • 2008 – winner, 25th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 2007 – finalist, 24th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 2001 – finalist, 18th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 2000 – 17th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 1999 – 16th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 1998 – 15th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 1997 – 14th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award


Source: Kreczmanski, Janusz B & Birnberg, Margo (eds.): Aboriginal Artists: Dictionary of Biographies: Central Desert, Western Desert & Kimberley Region (JB Publishing Australia, Marleston, 2004)

 

Artist: Makinti Napanangka

Skin Name: Napanangka

Language: Pintupi

Region: Kintore

Vendor: Central Art

Dreaming: Pintupi women ceremonies associated with Kungka Kutjara - refers to Kuningka - western quoll (cirlces)

 

 

Sales Enquiries

Sabine Haider
Central Art - Aboriginal Art Store
T: (08) 8952 1711 (Aus) or +61 8 8952 1711 (Int)
Skype: centralart (Get Skype and call us for free)
F: (08) 8952 1744 (Aus) or +61 8 8952 1744 (Int)
» Email Central Art - Aboriginal Art Store about this page
» Subscribe to Central Art - Aboriginal Art Store's mailing list
» Contact Central Art - Aboriginal Art Store

 
 
Buy Aboriginal Art at Central Art - Aboriginal Art Store