Barbara Reid Napangardi

Barbara Reid Napangarti is a Ngaanyatjarra woman working in a individualistic style depicting the country of Tjukurla in the Gibson Desert, Western Australia. Barbara’s paintings are beautiful depictions of place, paintings of the lands to which she is custodian and the songs that explain them. Characteristic for Barbara is the depiction of puli – rock formations, and tali – sand dunes, those features that are so much a part of the land from which she comes. Also vital to Barbara’s work is the telling of women’s sacred stories – minyma – narratives that revolve around the role of the woman as healer and provider within Ngaanyatjarra society

Her paintings describe aspects of the secret and sacred Tingari Cycle, a spiritual journey that incorporates story, song and ceremony. They narrate the stories of the Tingari women– represented by the U shapes– who travelled vast stretches of the country performing rituals, which in turn brought into being the land formations of particular sites. Barbara depicts the Minymaku Tingari – the telling of women’s ceremonial stories that relate to the natural environment surrounding Tjukurla, which is dominated by expansive sandhills and rockholes containing water where bush foods are found. The wider U shapes are the windbreaks the women use, and around them are the features of this particular landscape, pintalypa, a native bush-apple, represented by the red-ochre oval shapes.

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Awards: 17th Australian National Telstra Aboriginal Art Award

Collections:

• Museum and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory (Darwin)

• University of Miami (Florida USA)

• Richard Kelton Foundation

• Donald Kahn Collection Lowe Art Museum (Florida)

• Homes a Court Collection (Perth)

• Art Gallery of Western Australia

• National Art Gallery of New Zealand

• Art Gallery of South Australia

• Queensland National Art Gallery

• Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory

• Art Bank Sydney

• Australian National University

• Art Museum & City Gallery Flinders University (Adelaide)

• Thomas Vroom Collection Amsterdam

Exhibitions:

2004 – Papunya: Painters of the Western Desert, Addison Galleries, NSW.
2003 – Emerge, Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory, Darwin.
2001 – Alliance Francaise de Canberra; Sand Spinifex & Salt Leading Central Desert Painters Japingka

Gallery

2000 – Salt, Sand and Spinifex, Japingka Gallery, June 2000;

Barbara Napangarti Reid, Vivien Anderson Gallery, August;

17th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the

Northern Territory, Darwin N.T.

2000 – Japinka Gallery Perth, 2000, Vivian Anderson Gallery Melbourne.

2000 – Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Darwin.

2000 – Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs NT

1998 – Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Darwin touring exhibitions in

America and Indonesia Australian Regional Galleries;

17th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award exhibition Darwin, North Territory

Bibliography:

Gallery Gondwanna, Barbara Reid Napangardi Biographical Notes, Alice Springs, NT, 2002.

Australian Encyclopedia 2004 Aboriginal Artists dictionary of biographies by Janusz B. Kreczmanski and Margo Birnberg

Barbara Reid Napangardi's Artworks

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