View artworks by Yinarupa Nangala

BORN: c. 1948-

COUNTRY: Papunya

TRIBE: Pintupi

Yinarupa Nangala is a Pintupi woman who was born “bush” at Mukula, across the WA border in the region of today’s settlement of Kiwirrkurra. She is variously reported to have been born around 1948 and 1961, birthing records not being available. She is the daughter of the late Anatjari Tjampitjinpa, a founding member of the Papunya Tula art movement. Along with her brother Roy James Tjangala, they both continue the contribution as artists as did their father.

Yinarupa is a mother of 5 and currently resides in Alice Springs. She often visits her homelands near Jupiter Well in WA.

Yinarupa paints her traditional land where the women gather to conduct ceremonial business. The sacred designs she paints have an intuitive sense of space and rhythm and are associated with the rockhole site of Mukula. These places are also sites with much food, and the women gather the seeds of the native Acacia. They collect the seeds and grind it into flour and eventually bake bread from this.

Her paintings also commonly show rockholes which are important water sources in the desert. During ancestral times a large group of women came from the west and stopped at this site to perform the ceremonies associated with the area.

Yinarupa received an honorable mention at the 2010, 36th Alice Art Prize – A National Contemporary Art Award. 

She exhibited this year in Idaho, USA as part of an exhibition by Papunya Tula Artists, ‘Art of The Western Desert’.

Awards

2009 – 26th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Darwin.

2009 Finalist – Western Australian Art Prize, Perth
2010

Finalist – Western Australian Art Prize, Perth