NAIDOC Week 2016 - Streets of Papunya

Image: Martha McDonald Napaltjarri (in foreground) and Mona Nangala painting at Papunya Tjupi art centre, Papunya, 2015. Photograph: Helen Puckey

Streets of Papunya presents the new generation of painters from the legendary epicentre of Western Desert art.

Networks of kinship have ensured the handing-down of ancestral narratives, clan designs and the mental maps of sacred geography which provide the paintings’ motifs.

This exhibition seeks to locate the work of the current generation within the momentous historical achievement of their elders.
Women artists are conspicuously more prominent among the younger generation.

The exhibition coincides with a major publication by Vivien Johnson, who is the curator of this exhibition.

Papunya artists past and present include Albert Namatjira, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Charlotte Phillipus Napurrula, Martha McDonald Napaltjarri, Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra, Candy Nelson Nakamarra and Shorty Lunkarta

This exhibition includes a wide selection of historical works drawn from the collections of ANU Anthropology and Archaeology and the College of Asia and the Pacific.

This exhibition is a joint venture between the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, University of New South Wales and Papunya Tjupi Arts.