Judy Napangardi Martin was born about 1940 in Warlpiri country near Yuendumu in the Tanami Desert. She is the eldest daughter of famous painter Lorna Napurrula Fencer, and is half sister to Judy Napangardi Watson. Judy Napangardi Martin began her painting during the 1980s and 1990s at Lajamanu Community, located between Yuendumu and Wave Hill in the Northern Territory.
Judy Napangardi Martin paints the significant Women’s Dreaming stories located around Yuendumu. These sites include Mina Mina and Yurmurrpa, her mother’s Dreaming site.
Judy Napangardi Martin uses bold line structure and contained areas of rich colour to map out her Dreaming stories. Her most recent paintings mark a distinctive step forward by the artist. She is re-affirming her ceremonial rights and obligations, as part of the Napangardi skin group, to her traditional sites in the Tanami Desert. These paintings are an artist’s statement of celebration, of renewal and of inheritance. Aboriginal art status – Mid career artist.
Selected Exhibitions:
1991 Lajamanu – Warlpiri Artsist from Lajamanu, Coo-ee, Sydney
1991 Ngurra Mala – Les Lieux du Reve, Ecole des beaux-arts, Grenoble, France
1991 Yapa, Peintres Aborigenes De Balgo et Lajamanu – Baudoin Lebon Gallery, Paris
1992 Lajamanu Dreamings 2 – Technical and Further Education College Darwin
1998 Aboriginal Olympic Exhibition – Phillip Morris, Lausanne
1998 Warnayaka Warlpiri – Karen Brown Gallery, Darwin
2000 Lajamanu Womens Artists, Coo-ee, Sydney.
2000 Artists of Lajamanu – Tandanya, Adelaide
2000 Artists of Lajamanu – Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
2003 Yilpinji, Love, Magic and Ceremony – Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
2003 Darwin Entertainment Centre Gallery
2003 Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
2005 Judy Napangardi Martin – Japingka Gallery, Fremantle