Listing Details
Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri
c 1948 – 2022
Ngoia was born in Haast’s Bluff, 250km west of Alice Springs. She married artist Jack Tjakamarra Tjampitimpa and together they lived at various locations in the Northern Territory raising their 5 children.
Jack painted with the Papunya Tula artists a group of indigenous men who began painting in 1971 assisted by teacher Geoffrey Bardon. Bardon encouraged them to use the different size dot patterns familiar to their culture. They achieved quite rapid success however did resist any women joining their group or taking up painting.
By the 1990’s women of the Western Desert communities had begun to paint. Ngoia first spent time helping her husband with his paintings and learning his techniques prior to his death. By 1997 she was recognised as an independent painter, and had started to win awards for her work. Her inspiration was ‘Water Snake Dreamings’, the stories she had personal ancestral responsibility and rights to. These stories relate to her father's ancestral lands in the region of Yamunturrngu, the sacred Warlpiri territory associated with stories of the Water Snake, west of Haasts Bluff.
The oval shapes in her paintings represent the swamps and lakes and the dots, dried water and cracks in the ground . Her preference was to use traditional colours of red, black, white and yellow.
Her work is held in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and other significant collections.
Image Dimensions: 300 mm W x 600 mm H
Framing: Unframed
