aboriginal artist: Tilau Nangala

Tilau Nangala was born c. 1933 at Haasts Bluff of Ngaliya/Warlpiri parents. Tilau never a ended school – during her childhood the family s ll lived in the bush, supplemen ng their diet of bush tucker with supplies collected from Haasts Bluff ra on depot. When the family came across from Haasts Bluff to Papunya in the first days of the se lement, Tilau was already married, with two young daughters. Two more daughters and a son were born in Papunya. Ever since, Tilau has lived at Papunya, where she worked in the Papunya Hospital, in the old Papunya communal kitchen and more recently in the Papunya School, passing on her love of dancing to the children. Tilau is a senior law woman. Her deeply felt knowledge of country and ceremony empowers her bold lyrical and expressive pain ngs depic ng the topography of hills and creeks that create the feeling of flowing water. The great Water Dreaming site of Mikantji she inherited from her father is nearly always her subject. She says her aun e taught her culture and stories but she developed her own ideas on how to paint it. She paints “so the children can watch me paint and learn, so I can pass on my Dreaming and stories to my grandchildren. Papunya is my mother’s brother’s country.” In the past, Tilau was a prodigious carver of coolamons and clap s cks and maker of inini seed necklaces, but these days she mainly paints – and has also produced prints with Cicada Press College of Fine Arts UNSW.