Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi

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Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi
Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi (cropped).jpg
Born1967 (age 56–57)
Papunya, Northern Territory, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Known forPainting
Movement contemporary Indigenous Australian art

Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi (born in 1967) is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist born in the Papunya community, she followed in her father Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri's footsteps and became an internationally respected painter. Examples of her work are held in many gallery collections in Australia and elsewhere, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Flinders University Art Museum, the Kelton Foundation Collection, the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and the Royal Collection. [1]

Contents

Early life

Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi is the eldest daughter of Indigenous Australian artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Born in 1967 in Papunya, around 2.4 km northwest of Alice Springs in the community formed in the 1930s when Pintupi and Luritja people were forced off their traditional land and moved into Hermannsburg and Haasts Bluff. Her language is Anmatyerre. [2] She spent her early life in Alice Springs, where she began painting with her father from a very young age. [3] [4] [5]

Career

Haasts Bluff, visible between Glen Helen Resort to Papunya. Near to where Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi was born. Haasts Bluff, NT photographed in 2011. 01.JPG
Haasts Bluff, visible between Glen Helen Resort to Papunya. Near to where Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi was born.

When she was 16 In 1985, Nungurrayi won the Alice Springs Art Award. [3]

Throughout her life Nungurrayi has been exhibiting work in Australia and overseas. In 1991 Nungurrayi received a Professional Development Grant from the Aboriginal Arts Unit of the Australia Council for the Arts, which helped her to develop her recognisable style showing dotted landscapes featuring elements such as bush foods familiar to her people. As her work was shown at higher profile galleries, collectors became interested in her work. [6]

As indigenous art from Australia gained more recognition, Nungurrayi's talent was recognised in a number of international shows. In 2006, she was one of the 33 artists showing at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which was the first major US presentation of art by indigenous women in Australia. [7] In 2010 Nungurrayi showed work in the Down Under Gallery in Munich, Germany. [8]

In 2008 Nungurrayi's work found an international audience when celebrity gardener Jamie Durie won the Gold Medal in the Chelsea Flower Show. When HRH Queen Elizabeth gave Durie the prize she was presented with an original work by the artist, which now hangs in the royal collection alongside that of her father. [9] [10]

At the 2014 Melbourne festival her work was used to decorate a tram as part of a major public art project called Melbourne Art Trams. [11]

At Vivid Sydney 2016, Nungurrayi's work was selected by director of the "Lighting of the Sails" installation, meaning her images were projected onto the Sydney Opera House along with five other Indigenous artists, Karla Dickens, Djon Mundine, Reko Rennie, Donny Woolagoodja, and Gulumbu Yunupingu. [12]

Her sister, Michelle Possum Nungurrayi is also a renowned artist. They exhibited together in 2017 at the Japingka gallery in Perth in 2017. [13]

Personal life

Since the early 2000s, Nungurrayi has lived near to Melbourne with her family. [14] The sale of her father's piece "Warlugulong" earned her significant resale royalty, which was seen as a fitting change made possible by the Australian resale royalty right movement, which sought to prevent financial exploitation of indigenous artists. [5] [15] Danny Ramzan of the Australian hip hop group Yung Warriors is Nungurrayi's son. [16]

Related Research Articles

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri AO was an Australian painter, considered to be one of the most collected and renowned Australian Aboriginal artists. His paintings are held in galleries and collections in Australia and elsewhere, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, the Kelton Foundation and the Royal Collection.

Dorothy Napangardi was a Warlpiri speaking contemporary Indigenous Australian artist born in the Tanami Desert and who worked in Alice Springs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papunya</span> Town in the Northern Territory, Australia

Papunya is a small Indigenous Australian community roughly 240 kilometres (150 mi) northwest of Alice Springs (Mparntwe) in the Northern Territory, Australia. It is known as an important centre for Contemporary Indigenous Australian art, in particular the style created by the Papunya Tula artists in the 1970s, referred to colloquially as dot painting. Its population in 2016 was 404.

Papunya Tula, registered as Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 in Papunya, Northern Territory, owned and operated by Aboriginal people from the Western Desert of Australia. The group is known for its innovative work with the Western Desert Art Movement, popularly referred to as dot painting. Credited with bringing contemporary Aboriginal art to world attention, its artists inspired many other Australian Aboriginal artists and their styles.

Pansy Napangardi is an Australian artist. She is associated with the Jukurrpa group of women artists in Alice Springs where she lives today.

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, was one of the most important painters to emerge from the Western Desert.

Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri,, an Anmatyerr man born at Ilpitirri near Mount Denison, was one of Australia's best-known artists of the Western Desert Art Movement, Papunya Tula.

In Australian Aboriginal art, a Dreaming is a totemistic design or artwork, which can be owned by a tribal group or individual. This usage of anthropologist W. E. H. Stanner's term was popularised by Geoffrey Bardon in the context of the Papunya Tula artist collective he established in the 1970s.

Kumantje Jagamara, also known as Kumantje Nelson Jagamara, Michael Minjina Nelson Tjakamarra, Michael Nelson Tjakamarra and variations, was an Aboriginal Australian painter. He was one of the most significant proponents of the Western Desert art movement, an early style of contemporary Indigenous Australian art.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Makinti Napanangka</span> Indigenous Australian artist from the Western Desert region (c. 1930 – 2011)

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Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians, that is, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. It is generally regarded as beginning in 1971 with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, involving Aboriginal artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and facilitated by white Australian teacher and art worker Geoffrey Bardon. The movement spawned widespread interest across rural and remote Aboriginal Australia in creating art, while contemporary Indigenous art of a different nature also emerged in urban centres; together they have become central to Australian art. Indigenous art centres have fostered the emergence of the contemporary art movement, and as of 2010 were estimated to represent over 5000 artists, mostly in Australia's north and west.

<i>Warlugulong</i> 1977 painting by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

Warlugulong is a 1977 acrylic on canvas painting by Indigenous Australian artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri. Owned for many years by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the work was sold by art dealer Hank Ebes on 24 July 2007, setting a record price for a contemporary Indigenous Australian art work bought at auction when it was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for A$2.4 million. The painting illustrates the story of an ancestral being called Lungkata, together with eight other dreamings associated with localities about which Clifford Possum had traditional knowledge. It exemplifies a distinctive painting style developed by Papunya Tula artists in the 1970s, and blends representation of landscape with ceremonial iconography. Art critic Benjamin Genocchio describes it as "a work of real national significance [and] one of the most important 20th-century Australian paintings".

Vivien Joan Johnson is an Australian sociologist, writer on Indigenous Australian art, curator, teacher and former editor-in-chief of the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online. She is based in Sydney with frequent travel to Papunya where much of her work is centered. Johnson is considered to be a pioneer in interdisciplinary research as she combines anthropological, sociological, philosophical and art historical perspectives. She has also done extensive work on Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights.

Kaapa Mbitjana Tjampitjinpa was a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist of Anmatyerre, Warlpiri and Arrernte heritage. One of the earliest and most significant artists at Papunya in Australia's Northern Territory in the early 1970s, he was a founding member and inaugural chairman of the Papunya Tula artists company, and pivotal to the establishment of modern Indigenous Australian painting.

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References

  1. ↑ "Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi (b. 1967) - Grandmothers Country - Bush Tucker Dreaming and Yams". Royal_Collection Trust . Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  2. ↑ Stourton, Patrick Corbally; Stourton, Nigel Corbally (1996). Songlines and Dreamings: Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Painting: The First Quarter Century of Papunya Tula. London: Lund Humphries. p. 66. ISBN   9780853316916. OCLC   35641332 . Retrieved 21 August 2018– via Google Books.
  3. 1 2 "Artist Biography - Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi". Kate Owen Gallery. Archived from the original on 7 March 2023. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  4. ↑ Johnson, Vivien (2010). Once Upon a Time in Papunya. University of New South Wales Press. p. 23. ISBN   9781742240138. OCLC   704284235 . Retrieved 20 August 2018– via Google Books.
  5. 1 2 BOLAND, MICHAELA. "Possum first to receive royalty from artwork resale scheme" . Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  6. ↑ Newstead, Adrian (2014). The Dealer is the Devil: An Insiders History of the Aboriginal Art Trade. Blackheath, Australia: Brandl & Schlesinger. pp. 217–218. ISBN   9781921556449. OCLC   874178393 – via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Kennedy, Brian P.; Boles, Margo Smith; Konau, Britta (2006). Dreaming Their Way: Australian Aboriginal Women Painters. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of Women in the Arts. pp. 56–57. ISBN   9781857594423. OCLC   71788898 . Retrieved 22 August 2018– via Google Books.
  8. ↑ "Aboriginal art gallery in Munich". Aboriginal Art Directory. 1 August 2010. Archived from the original on 15 April 2024. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  9. ↑ Newstead, Adrian (26 May 2008). "Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi 1967: Top 200 Australian Aboriginal Artists". Aboriginal Art Directory. Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  10. ↑ Gadd, Denise (15 March 2008). "Durie's out on how to make gardeners love the natives" . The Age . Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  11. ↑ Spring, Alexandra (24 October 2014). "Melbourne festival 2014: one perfect day". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  12. ↑ Taylor, Andrew (27 May 2016). "Vivid Sydney 2016: Lighting of the Sails at the Sydney Opera House" . The Sydney Morning Herald . Archived from the original on 17 July 2024. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
  13. ↑ "Talking about Country – Possum Sisters - Exhibition at Japingka". Japingka Aboriginal Art Gallery. 2017. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  14. ↑ "Desert Paintings: Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi: Grandmother's Gold Country". Aboriginal Dreaming Gallery. Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  15. ↑ Rimmer, Matthew (2015). Indigenous Intellectual Property: A Handbook of Contemporary Research. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 218. ISBN   9781781955901. OCLC   945585944 – via Google Books.
  16. ↑ Minestrelli, Chiara (2016). Australian Indigenous Hip Hop: The Politics of Culture, Identity, and Spirituality. London: Routledge. p. 116. ISBN   9781317217534. OCLC   1240713568 – via Google Books.
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