Born: 12/4/1962 Community: Tjukkula, Western Desert Language Bloc: Western Desert Language: Ngatatjara Social Affiliation: Napangardi subsection Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas Subjects: Tingari, bush tucker
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.
