ABORIGINAL DESERT ART  GALLERY

EUNICE NAPANGARDI

Born at Yuendumu in the early 50's , Eunice is Luritja Warlpiri, and is the sister ( by name only ) of Pansy, Alice Napangardi and Rene Robinson Napangardi with whom she shares many of the Dreamings they paint. Eunice has led a strict traditional life in the Papunya area prior to her arrival in Alice Springs in the late 1980s.

Eunice was an apprentice to her Husband Kaapa Tjampitjimpa and helped him for several years in the early 80's. Gaining experience and technique, she emerged in the late 80's as an artist in her own right becoming one of the central desert's leading Aboriginal Artists. Kaapa was one of the first artists to paint in Papunya and was most likely responsible for the central desert painting movement as you see it today. Kaapa Tjampitjinpa passed away in October 1989.

Her work is included in the Stockman's Hall of Fame. She was one of three women selected for a special furniture painting project for the Bicentennial Travelling Exhibition. Her work is also featured in the Tjukurrpa Exhibition at the Blaxland Gallery c.1989. In 1991 she exhibited again at the Aboriginal Arts Australia Gallery in Sydney with Maxie Tjampitjinpa. She travelled to Sydney for the opening .

Eunice's Bush Banana paintings are world-renowned. The Alice Springs Airport commissioned a large Eunice Napangardi painting for its inaugural opening in December 1991. Exhibits were included in a travelling exhibition which started in Washington DC for The World Bank Exhibition, Modern Art - Ancient Icon, in 1992. Other exhibits include: Australian Embassy, Washington DC, 1999. United Nations building, New York City, 1999. She has also exhibited in Brisbane with Pansy Napangardi, in a two women show. Eunice’s work is highly sought after by collectors worldwide, making Eunice one of the most established contemporary Aboriginal artists in Australia. Eunice has painted for the Aboriginal Desert Art Gallery (Michael Hollow), Alice Springs, since 1989.

One definitive highlight and specialty of her present work rests in her ability to bring to life the visual effect of her dreaming on canvas. The visual nature, contour and structure of her work is a pleasure to view.

Eunice has the innate capacity to meld together her imagery with a deep understanding of her culture. This interaction is seen and felt through the rigorous high quality standard of work she sets for herself. The end result to this mastery is a transmutation of visual feeling making her work extremely sophisticated.

Currently Eunice is living in Alice Springs, with her adopted son Corey, who she's 'grown up'. Her husband Maxi Tjumpitjinpa passed away in 1997.

Collections:

:National Galleries

Wollongong City Art Gallery,

Federal Airports Corporation,

Michael Hollow Collection

Richard Kelton - United States.etc...

Aboriginal paintings are based on myths of the Dreamtime. In modern dot representation, the sacred aspect of the painting is not always revealed, but the meaning remains, transmitted through symbols which are easily understood.

Each person has particular Dreaming to which they belong and they have special ceremonial dances and songs that combine together to form a unique religion that makes up the lives of the Aboriginal people. All things related to the land and thus the land is of great importance to them. The land is the keeper of the Dreaming and must be kept safe for all time so that the Dreaming stories, which are told in the paintings, can be preserved

As the legendary KUNGKA KUTJARA (two women) traveled the land during the Dreamtime Creative era they came upon the site of Pikilly (Vaughan Springs).

Here was the Uparli dreaming enacted and passed on.

In this painting titled "UPARLI" Eunice depicts a stylized representation of the bush banana plant with its radiating vines.

The bush banana grows in rocks crevices close to dry river beds in spinifex country. The bush banana is illustrated in a variety of colours indicated the different stages of the plant' life cycle. This edible fruit can be eaten either raw or cooked and is collected on a daily basis by Aboriginal women.

In depicting the bush banana Eunice Napangardi's painting also celebrates fertility and the recurring seasons. The search for edible fruits and other valuable sources of bush tucker is an important part of Aboriginal life, not only as a means of day to day survival but as a way of ensuring the continued fertility of human and ancestral populations.

Women are the principle gatherers of bush tucker and are also the principle painters of celebratory bush tucker.

With respect to the secret and sacred aspect of the ceremonies involved, no further information is obtainable.