Eileen Napaltjarri

Eileen Napaltjarri was born in Haasts Bluff, in Central Australia in 1956. She is the daughter of Charlie Tararu Tjungurrayi and Tatali Nangala, both of which were well known artists. Charlie was one of the founding members of Papunya Tula Artists and is considered a very collectable artist. Tatali was also a very successful artist with Papunya Tula from 1996 until her death in 1999. Eileen is a second generation Papunya Tula artist and is considered an emerging artist. I (Sabine Haider, Director, Central Art) am extremely excited to be showcasing her works with Central Art.

Eileen Napaltjarri grew up at Haasts Bluff but later moved to Kintore, in the Western Desert, with her family when it was first established in the early 1980’s. As a young woman she would often be found sitting beside her parents as they worked and began to take a keen interest in their depictions and the stories behind them. Eileen is married to Kenny Williams Tjampitjinpa who is a well known artist from Kintore, perhaps this talented family will continue this new tradition of contemporary art to a third generation of artists. Eileen did not paint her first artwork until after the passing of her mother in 1999, however since that time she has perfected her depictions and is well known in her own right.

The primary focus of her artwork is her Dreaming “Tjurrulnga”, which is a sacred rock hole just west of Kintore and the birthplace of her father. In her paintings she tells the story of a group of men and women who travelled east from this site towards a rock hole at Illpilli during ancestral times. Throughout the journey the group gathered a variety of bush foods including Pitjara, Pura and Kampurarrpa. The lines in Eileen’s artworks represent the lengths of wood that were collected by the ancestral men and women and how the wood was then fashioned into various hunting implements such as spears, nulla nulla’s and boomerangs.

In a newspaper article by the Australian, Eileen shared “When I was a young girl...I would travel out with my mother and father to their country, to Tjiturrulnga Rockhole. We would go back there, and they would touch the rock and say to me ‘You have to paint a painting just like this” (Rothwell, 2006). With this is mind, Eileen focuses on the landscape in her artworks and has stayed true to what her parents asked of her. She uses a rich palette of vibrant colours which reverberates with intensity and creates a bold and wonderful patterning on the canvas.

Eileen Napaltjarri is included in various well known collections in Australia and has had multiple group and solo exhibitions held around Australia, Singapore, London and France. She is certainly considered an emerging artist. Central Art are very happy to be working with her and the artworks we have I consider to be of a high quality and most customers who visit the gallery often stand still mesmerised by her artwork. Central Art looks forward to bringing our clients some amazing artwork from the Western Desert Region.