aboriginal artist: Nellie Nangala

Nellie is the second child of pioneer Papunya Tula painter Walter Tjampitjinpa and his first wife Ngalunta. After Nellie’s birth, the family moved to Haasts Bluff and later Papunya. Nellie was in her early thirties when the painting enterprise started up at Papunya, married to Two Bob Tjungurrayi, who later became a painter himself. Nellie first started to paint helping her husband with the background dotting on his paintings and now she is a well known painter in her own right. Nellie occasionally painted for Papunya Tula Artists in the 1980s when, at their husband’s insistence, Papunya Tula supplied materials to some of the older women in Papunya. In the 1990s and 2000s after Papunya Tula moved it’s studio to Kintore, she painted for Warumpi Arts that was ran by the Papunya Community Council. Today, Nellie continues to paint daily in Papunya and is one of the most consistent and dedicated artists at the Papunya Tjupi art centre. She has developed a meticulous and ephemeral style of very fine dot painting taking many months to complete just one work.