Artist:  Liddy Napanangka Walker

Born:  c.1930

Language:  Warlpiri

Country:  Yuendumu

 

Liddy Walker was born at Mt Doreen and spent her younger years living with her family in bush camps. She regularly visits her country around Mt Theo and west of Yuendumu. She has lived in Yuendumu, a Warlpiri community in the Tanami 300km Northwest of Alice Springs, since it was first established and has worked in the community in various pastoral care roles including as a cook.

She started painting on canvas not long after Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Association was established and is now one of its most senior members.

In 1985, she collaborated with Topsy Collins (Peters) Napanangka and Judy Granites Nampitjinpa on Wakirlpirri Jukurrpa (Dogwood Dreaming), which subsequently was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 

In 1992, she took part, with Maggie Napanangka White in a project commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia to document the major Dreamings represented in the current painting movement of the Yuendumu region.

"I paint my father's Japangardi's Dreaming and my grandfather's Dreaming. Mt Theo is my father's country and that's what I paint the special Dreamings from. The Dreaming's I paint are bush tomato and goanna. Goanna likes to fight and is a lover boy. And I paint seed pods and bush potato and hopping mouse. There are lots of stories."

Selected exhibitions:

1985- Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs

1986- Editions Gallery, Perth

1987- Blaxland Gallery, Sydney

1987- Portsmouth Festival, U.K.

1987- Wara Gallery, Adelaide

1988- South Australian Museum, Adelaide

1988- F.O.E. Linden Gallery, Melbourne

1989- Hogarth Galleries, Sydney

1990- South Gallery, Melbourne

1991- Araluen Art Centre, Alice Springs

1991- Hogarth Galleries, Sydney

1992- Dreamtime Gallery, Gold Coast

1992- Musee des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie, Paris, France

1994- Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs

2000- Beaver Galleries, Canberra

2000- University of the Northern Territory Art Gallery, Darwin

2002- Hogarth Galleries, Sydney

2002- "The Warlukurlangu Collection", Parliament House, Canberra

2003- Jeffrey Moose Gallery, Seattle and Washington, U.S.A.

2007- Art Sydney, Aranda Aboriginal Art

2007- Shanghai Art Fair, Aranda Aboriginal Art

2008- Aboriginal Art aus der Central und Western Desert, ArtKelch, Germany

2008- Warlukurlangu Artists, the art of Yuendumu, La Fontaine Centre of Contempora Art, Bahrain, UAE

2008- The Women's Show, Vivien Anderson Gallery, Melbourne

2008- Opening Doors into Colourful Dreamtime, ReDot Gallery, Singapore

Collections:

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

South Australian Museum, Adelaide

Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Warlukurlangu Collection

Aranda Collection

Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht

Flinders University Art Museum, Melbourne

Gordon Darling Foundation, Canberra

Themes:

Warna (Snake)

Ngalyipi (Snake Vine)

Jarrada-Jarrayi (Dreaming Site)

Kanta (Bloodwood Gall or Bush Coconut)

Wardapi (Goanna)

Wakirlpirri (Dogwood Seed)

Karnta (Women)

Puturlu (Mt. Theo)

Wanakiji (Bush Tomato)