aboriginal artist: Ada Andy Napaltjarri

VIEW works by Ada

Ada Andy Napaltjarri was born circa 1954.  She is a Warlpiri and Luritja speaking artist, born near Haasts Bluff in the Northern Territory.  She now paints for Papunya Tjupi Arts, the community art centre based in Papunya, approximately 300kms North West of Alice Springs.  Papunya is the famous birthplace (in the early 1970s), of central desert dot-painting.

Ada began painting in the early 1980s at Alice Springs, when women first began to paint.  Ada was one of the first women to paint with the Papunya Tula art community.

Ada has lived in quite a few communities in the Northern Territory, including Mount Allen, Lajamanu and Willowra.  Ada kept herself busy painting, and her husband was a teacher. Vivien Johnson believed Ada may have been partly responsible for the development of painting in those communities.

Western Desert artists such as Ada will frequently paint particular ‘dreamings’, or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights. Ada paints Warumpi Mother and Daughter dreaming, Women Dancing, Yalka (bush onion) dreaming, and stories associated with black plum, wurrampi (honey ant) and Ngapa (water).