Makinti Napanangka
Encyclopedia
Makinti Napanangka was a Pintupi
Pintupi language
Pintupi is an indigenous Australian language. It is one of the Wati languages of the large Southwest branch of the Pama–Nyungan family. It is one of the varieties of the Western Desert Language ....

-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from Australia's Western Desert
Western Desert cultural bloc
The Western Desert cultural bloc or just Western Desert is a cultural region in Australia covering about 600,000 square kilometres, including the Gibson Desert, the Great Victoria Desert, the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia...

 region. She lived in the communities of Haasts Bluff, Papunya, and later at Kintore
Kintore, Northern Territory
Kintore is a remote settlement in the Northern Territory of Australia, located approximately 530 km west of Alice Springs and close to the border with Western Australia. At the 2001 census, Kintore had a population of 691, of which 95% identified themselves as Aboriginal...

, about 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) north-east of the Lake MacDonald region where she was born, on the border of the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

 and Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

.

Kumentje Napanangka began painting Contemporary Indigenous Australian art
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians. It is generally regarded as beginning with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory in 1971, involving artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri...

 at Kintore in the mid-1990s, encouraged by a community art project. Interest in her work developed quickly, and she is now represented in most significant Australian public art galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...

. A finalist in the 2003 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award
Clemenger Contemporary Art Award
The Clemenger Contemporary Art Award was a major, triennial, invitational art prize organised under the auspices of the National Gallery of Victoria and funded by the philanthropists Joan and Peter Clemenger. The Clemengers' gift was made in 1991 and the first award was made in 1993. The final...

, Kumentje won the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
The National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award is one of the most prestigious art awards in Australia. Established in 1984 by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and awarded annually, it is sponsored by Telstra, so is commonly known as the Telstra Award.Prize-winners...

 in 2008. Her work was shown in the major Indigenous art exhibition Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...

.

Working in synthetic polymer
Acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...

 on linen
Linen
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....

 or canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

, Kumentje's paintings primarily take as their subjects a rockhole site, Lupul, and an Indigenous story (or "dreaming
Dreaming (spirituality)
The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating....

") about two sisters, known as Kungka Kutjarra. She was a member of the Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is 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"...

 Artists Cooperative, but her work has been described as more spontaneous than that of her fellow Papunya Tula artists.

Personal life

Kumentje Napanangka's year of birth is uncertain, but a plurality of searches indicate she was born around 1930, although other sources indicate she may have been born as early as 1922 or as late as 1932 at a location described by some sources as Lupul rockhole but by one major reference work as Mangarri. All sources agree that she comes from the area of Karrkurritinytja or Lake MacDonald, which straddles the border between Western Australia and the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

, 50 kilometres (31.1 mi) south-west of Kintore, and about 500 kilometres (310.7 mi) west of Alice Springs
Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Alice Springs is the second largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated in the geographic centre of Australia near the southern border of the Northern Territory...

.

Kumentje was a member of the Pintupi
Pintupi
Pintupi refers to an Australian Aboriginal group who are part of the Western Desert cultural group and whose homeland is in the area west of Lake MacDonald and Lake Mackay in Western Australia. These people moved into the Aboriginal communities of Papunya and Haasts Bluff in the west of the...

 group of Indigenous people, who are associated with the communities of Papunya, Kintore, and Kiwirrkura
Kiwirrkurra, Western Australia
Kiwirrkurra is a small community in Western Australia in the Gibson Desert, 1,200 km east of Port Hedland and 850 km west of Alice Springs. It has been described as the most remote community in Australia....

. "Napanangka" is a skin name, one of eight used to denote the subgroups in the Pintupi kinship system, not a surname in the sense used by Europeans. Thus her personal name was "Makinti" (now post-mortem: Kumentje). The uncertainty around Kumentje's date and place of birth arises from the fact that Indigenous Australians often estimate dates of birth by comparison with other events, especially for people born before contact with European Australians. They may also cite the place of birth as being where the mother first felt the foetus move
Quickening
Quickening is the earliest perception of fetal movement by a mother during pregnancy Quickening may also refer to:* Quickening , Final Fantasy XIIs incarnation of "Limit Breaks"...

, rather than where the birth took place.

Kumentje's first contact with white people was seeing them riding camels, when she was living at Lupul. She was one of a large group of people who walked into Haasts Bluff in the early 1940s, together with her husband Nyukuti Tjupurrula (brother of artist Nosepeg Tjupurrula), and their son Ginger Tjakamarra, born around 1940. At Haasts Bluff they had a second child, Narrabri Narrapayi, in 1949. The population moved to Papunya in the late 1950s, where Kumentje had another child, Jacqueline Daaru, in 1958. She had a daughter, Winnie Bernadette, in 1961 in Alice Springs. The family moved to Kintore when it was established in the early 1980s, and by 1996 Kumentje was painting there for the Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula
Papunya Tula, or Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, is an artist cooperative formed in 1972 that is 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"...

 Artists Cooperative. Her children Ginger, Narrabri, and Jacqueline also became artists, all of them painting for Papunya Tula Artists.

Physically tiny yet robust and strong, Kumentje was described as "a charmer and an irascible character", with an infectious smile. She died in Alice Springs in January 2011. She is referred to posthumously as 'Kumentje Napanangka'. The term Kumentje is used instead of her personal name as it is customary amongst many indigenous communities not to refer to the deceased by their original given name for some time after their death.

Artistic career

Artists of the Papunya Tula movement were painting at Haasts Bluff in the late 1970s, but the deaths of some of the main painters in the early 1980s led to a period of decline. In 1992, the Ikuntji Women's Centre was opened at Haasts Bluff and a new painting movement quickly developed, supported by founding art coordinator Marina Strocchi, who assisted in artists' development at both Haasts Bluff and Kintore. It was through this initiative that Kumentje began painting in the mid-1990s, and by 1997 her work was being acquired by major collecting institutions. She was one of the "Kintore ladies" who joined earlier generations of the famous Papunya Tula artists, and was referred to as "number one" by her fellow artists, amongst whom she was considered a leader. She painted with the Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative, in which she was a shareholder, from 1996.

The only break in her career was in 1999, when she underwent a cataract
Cataract
A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye or in its envelope, varying in degree from slight to complete opacity and obstructing the passage of light...

 operation, an event that journalist Nicholas Rothwell suggested was associated with a distinct shift in her work, including the increasing use of thick lines. Johnson said the operation resulted in "a collection of light-flooded canvases"; Art Gallery of New South Wales curator Hetti Perkins said that, after her recovery, "her work showed renewed vigour".

Kumentje's works were selected to hang in five consecutive National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) exhibitions, beginning in 1997. In 2000, she held her first solo exhibition, and was one of the artists whose works were included in the major exhibition Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The following year, she was a finalist at the NATSIAA. 2003 saw her named by Australian Art Collector magazine
Australian Art Collector
Australian Art Collector is a quarterly art magazine. It primarily covers Australian contemporary and Indigenous art, but also occasionally features New Zealand and international artists.-Publication:...

 as one of the country's 50 most collectible artists, an assessment repeated by that magazine in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Also in 2003, she was amongst the finalists for the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award. By 2006, her works were commanding "the upper end of the price spectrum", though the resale values of those of her works not sold through Papunya Tula artists were considered precarious, owing to such works being of variable quality.

In August 2008, Kumentje won the $40,000 NATSIAA, but her age and circumstances prevented her from accepting it in person. In October 2008, she was one of several prominent artists whose works featured in a charity auction securing funds for the Menzies School of Health Research
Charles Darwin University
Charles Darwin University is an Australian public university with about 20,000 students in 2007.The University offers a wide range of Higher Education degrees and Vocational Education and Training courses with flexible study options, including part-time, external and online.CDU has campuses in the...

 in Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...

. Her painting sold for A$18,500, a significant contribution to the quarter of a million dollars raised. In 2009, she was again a finalist in the NATSIAA, with an untitled painting.

Most of Australia's public collections hold one or more works by Kumentje, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. She participated in some major group exhibitions, such as Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Colour Power at the National Gallery of Victoria, as well as having had a small number of solo exhibitions at private galleries, including the gallery of influential art dealer Gabrielle Pizzi
Gabrielle Pizzi
Gabrielle Pizzi was an Australian art dealer who promoted Aboriginal art from the Western Desert from the early 1980s.-Early life:Born Gabrielle Wren, in Sydney she moved to Hobart when she was five years old...

. The National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (Australia)
The National Portrait Gallery of Australia is a collection of portraits of prominent Australians that are important in their field of endeavour or whose life sets them apart as an individual of long-term public interest...

 in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

 has in its collection a photographic portrait of Kumentje, by Malaysian-born Australian artist Hari Ho.

Style of painting

Kumentje's works, including her Clemenger Award and NATSIAA paintings, are created with synthetic polymer
Acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry...

 on linen
Linen
Linen is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant, Linum usitatissimum. Linen is labor-intensive to manufacture, but when it is made into garments, it is valued for its exceptional coolness and freshness in hot weather....

 or canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...

.

Many paintings by artists of the Western Desert relate to water, while the story (or "dreaming
Dreaming (spirituality)
The Dreaming is a common term within the animist creation narrative of indigenous Australians for a personal, or group, creation and for what may be understood as the "timeless time" of formative creation and perpetual creating....

") most frequently portrayed by Western Desert women is Kungka Kutjarra, or Two Women, concerning the travel of two sisters. Kumentje's works reflect those themes, and are particularly associated with a rockhole site, Lupul, and with Kungka Kutjarra. Her untitled painting in the Genesis and Genius exhibition was based on Kungka Kutjarra, while the painting that won the 2008 Telstra award related to Lupul. The iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

 of her paintings includes the use of lines representing paths and ceremonial hair-string skirts, and circles representing water-holes.

According to Art Gallery of New South Wales Indigenous art curator and NATSIAA judge Hetti Perkins, Kumentje and her work are "very dynamic and charismatic". Although a member of the Papunya Tula Artists, Kumentje's work has been described as taking "a more spontaneous approach in illustrating the traditional iconography than that done by previous artists painting at Papunya". Her style has evolved over time, but her colour palette has consistently included a subtle range of yellows and pinks, through to oranges and whites.

Judith Ryan, senior curator at the National Gallery of Victoria, described Kumentje's entry in the 2003 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award as:
concerned with touching and sensing with fingers, rather than purely visual. The repetition of colour chords and textured striations, which closely echo each other, has a rhapsodic effect akin to many bodies in dance and reveals the inner or spiritual power, the essence, of Kumentje Napanagnka's country and cultural identity. The energetic lines invoke body paint for women’s business, and more particularly represent spun hair-string, which is used to make belts worn by women during ceremonies associated with the rockhole site of Lupulnga, a Peewee
Magpie-lark
The Magpie-lark is a conspicuous Australian bird of small to medium size, also known as the Mudlark in Victoria and Western Australia, the Murray Magpie in South Australia, and as the Peewee in New South Wales and Queensland...

 Dreaming place.


Reviewing the same exhibition, Robert Nelson described Kumentje's work as "sensual and chromatically effusive painting". The work of the "Kintore ladies" has created "some of the most richly textured surfaces in the history of the (Papunya Tula) company"; Kumentje's painting for Genesis and Genius was hailed as "a painterly celebration of colour and form".

Major collections

  • Art Gallery of New South Wales
    Art Gallery of New South Wales
    The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...

  • Campbelltown
    Campbelltown, New South Wales
    Campbelltown is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Campbelltown is located 51 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Campbelltown.- History :Campbelltown...

     City Art Gallery
  • Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
    Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
    The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory is the main museum in the Northern Territory. The museum is located in the inner Darwin suburb of Fannie Bay...

  • National Gallery of Australia
    National Gallery of Australia
    The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...

  • National Gallery of Victoria
    National Gallery of Victoria
    The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. Since December 2003, NGV has operated across two sites...

  • Queensland Art Gallery
    Queensland Art Gallery
    The Queensland Art Gallery is part of the Queensland Cultural Centre, and is located nearest to Brisbane River at South Bank...

  • Macquarie Bank collection
  • Shell Aboriginal Art Fund Collection

Solo exhibitions and awards

  • 1997 – 14th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 1998 – 15th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 1999 – 16th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 2000 – 17th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 2000 – Utopia Art, Sydney
  • 2001 – finalist, 18th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 2001 – Utopia Art, Sydney
  • 2002 – Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
  • 2003 – Utopia Art, Sydney
  • 2003 – finalist, Clemenger Contemporary Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria
  • 2007 – finalist, 24th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award
  • 2008 – winner, 25th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award

External links

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