These places are rich in bush tucker such as wanakiji, bush plums, yakajirri, bush tomatoes, and wardapi, sand goanna. read more, Receive our news about Aboriginal art, Asian art and international art. Select the categories you would like to subscribe/unsubscribe to from the options below. Judy Napangardi Watson Artworks - Page 1 of 1. Judy still frequently goes hunting in the country west of Yuendumu, near her homelands. With her family Judy made many trips on foot to her country and lived for long periods at Mina Mina and Yingipurlangu, her ancestral country on Australia. Born at Yarungkanji, Mt. Lacey, Stephen. The innovative approach attracted art buyers and their success encouraged more women artists across the desert communities. Hardie Grant. Warlpiri country is located in the Tanami Desert, and this is where Judy spent most of her life, embracing the traditional nomadic lifestyle of the Warlpiri people, travelling on foot throughout the land, hunting and collecting bush Colour Power. While the modern painting movement at Yuendumu was once largely associated with the murals painted by senior men on the school doors in 1984, women had been industriously involved in art and craft production for both financial and cultural reasons even prior to this event. There were two main reasons for this. This was however, largely a matter of perspective as traditional Aboriginal societies considered female knowledge to be the other half of an indivisible whole. Her Magnum Opus, Women’s Dreaming created for Peter Van Groessen in 1995, which had been held by Kimberley Art Gallery in Melbourne until first offered at auction in 2006, and again in 2008 and again most recently in 2019, each sale becoming her highest recorded sale at auction.
Her works first appeared at auction in 1994, yet with a slow and steady rise in secondary market sales, Judy Watson Napangardi climbed to 32nd place in the list of all indignous artists by 2009 as she leapfrogged Naata Nungurayi, Kathleen Petyarre, and Freddie Timms amongst the ranks of living artists. She simply did what she loved, applying electric colour fields in liquid paint on canvas.
Yet despite having painted for almost two decades it was not until 2004 that Judy had her first solo exhibition for Alcaston Gallery and since that time they have featured the artist’s works continuously. Before the 1980’s, art produced by women was often discounted as being less culturally important or simply decorative and supplementary.
Following in the footsteps of her sister Maggie, Judy began creating paintings for Warlurkurlangu Artists in 1986. Her work importantly graced the cover of the National Gallery of Victoria’s 2004 catalogue for the exhibition Colour Power - Aboriginal Art Post 1984 and since that time Judy had participated in a number of important print projects with Northern Editions and the Australian At Print Network; most notably the Yilpinji folio of Love Magic images by 15 Warlpiri artists from Yuendumu, Lajamanu and Balgo Hills.
Born at Yarungkanji, Mt. With such exposure in the secondary market it is little wonder that there has been a definite buzz around Judy Watson’s work in primary galleries. A woman of incredible energy that is transmitted to her work through her dynamic use of colour, and energetic “dragged dotting” style.
Judy Napangardi Watson (b. c1935, d. 2016) was a leading Warlpiri artist whose richly coloured paintings of the Women’s Dreaming story from Mina Mina are dynamic images of a powerful ceremonial site in the Tanami Desert.
Doreen Station, northwest of Alice Springs c.1925, Judy grew up hunting and collecting bush tucker while travelling on foot with her family throughout the vast Warlpiri country that lies between the Tanami and Gibson deserts. This will ensure that they stand amongst the most desirable of all contemporary Australian art well into the future and continue to propel her into the most select group of Aboriginal painters of all time. Doreen Station, a cattle station northwest of Alice Springs. Doreen Station, at the time when many Warlpiri and other Central and Western Desert Peoples were living a traditional nomadic life. Her shimmering canvases emulate the Warlpiri notion that health, well-being, and allure are exemplified by the glint of refracted brightness. The Aboriginal symbols used in this image are the ngalyipi running though the painting, women represented by "U" shapes and circles representing ceremonial sites.