Dorothy Napangardi Essay

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Dorothy Napangardi was born in approximately 1956. Dorothy grew up in Mina Mina, Jukurrpa. This relates to a major Women’s Dreaming site that is sacred to Warlpiri women of the Napangardi and Napanangka skin groups. She grew up in the Yuendumu Community which is 300 km away from Alice Springs in Central Australia. Dorothy’s father was Paddy Lewis Japanangka and her mother was Jeannie Lewis Napurrurla. She also had a sister, two brothers and a half-sister from her mum’s first marriage. Dorothy grew up travelling around Mina Mina with her family and extended family, living off the land and learning her culture in a traditional setting. As a young girl she was taught women’s Dreaming stories which were passed down to her from her grandfather …show more content…

Dorothy did many exhibitions in Australia and in other countries. In 2002, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney hosted an exhibition of Dorothy's work. While discussing her works, expert Christine Nicholls wrote that "Dorothy Napangardi’s success as an artist lies in her ability to evoke a strong sense of movement on her canvases, an effect she achieves because of her remarkable spatial sense and compositional ability... Her work can be appreciated on multiple levels.". Dorothy did many different prints and paintings. Her most famous painting is Salt on Mina Mina. The painting. This artwork was made on linen by painting tiny dots in different patterns. It depicts the movements of ancestral women as they travelled on foot and marked the land with their ‘digging sticks’. Significant ceremonies are still performed today by the Napangardi & Napanangka women who regularly gather at the Mina Mina site for the to re-enact the Dreaming story. There they paint each other's bodies with Dreaming designs. They also chant and dance the age old creation story. Mina Mina is the birthplace of the digging stick and a large patch of Eucalyptus trees (Casuarina Decaisneana) now stand where tradition says the digging sticks emerged from the

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