Abie Loy was born in 1972 at the Utopia homelands, 270 Kms north east of Alice Springs. Her language is Eastern Anmatyerre and her ancestral country is Iylenty, also called Mosquito Bore. Abie began painting in 1994 alongside her grandmother Kathleen Petyarre.

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Biddee Baadjo, a senior Wangkatjungka woman, was born around 1938, near Purrpurn waterhole, located in her ancestral country in the Great Sandy Desert in Western Australia. When she was still a baby, she was snatched by an eagle from a coolamon, where she had been left slee...

Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri is a Pitjantjatjara man born in the 1920s at Pirupa Akla, country located near the Olgas and to the west of Ayers Rock. By the time he was a young man, most of Whiskey's family had passed away. Many of his people had begun moving towards Haasts Blu...

Eubena (Yupinya) Nampitjin , one of the best known of the Warlayirti Artists from Balgo Hills, was born in the early 1920s in Tjinndjaldpa, south of Jupiter Well in the Great Sandy Desert , Western Australia. Eubena was taught mapam, traditional healing skills, as a young g...

Evelyn Pultara was born around 1940 at Woodgreen Station, the cattle property adjoining Utopia Station, north east of Alice Springs. She is an Anmatyerre woman and the mother of six children.

Evelyn began painting in 1997. Her early works were paintings on tradition...

George Tuckerbox was born in the late 1930s near Naminpa country, in the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. He grew up in country around Yimpurrpa, but then his family joined the exodus that saw large groups of Wangkatjungka people leaving the desert and travelling no...

George Ward Tjungurrayi was born around 1947 in the Western Desert near the remote West Australian community of Tjukurrla. His father had died when he was young, and it was not until his teenage years that George first met with white settlers. This meeting occurred when a w...

Gloria Petyarre was born in Utopia around 1945. Her language is Anmatyerre and her country is Atnangkere. Gloria is one of seven sisters who are all artists, including Kathleen Petyarre, Nancy Petyarre, Violet Petyarre and Ada Bird. Gloria lives at Mulga Bore (Akaye Soakage)...

Greeny Purvis was born around 1940 at Boundary Bore in the region of Utopia, and is the oldest nephew of the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye and a highly respected tribal elder. Greeny is an Eastern Anmatyerre speaker and his country is Alhalkere. Greeny has many sisters, includi...

Jack Dale was born in the bush at Mt House Station, in the west Kimberley around 1920. His early life was marked by the experience of conflict between different cultures. Jack's Aboriginal mother, a Ngarinyin woman, tried to keep her son from his violent white father. Jack ...

Janie Lee was born at the old mission at Balgo around 1945. Her family had lived in the area surrounding the Canning Stock Route, her mother was born at Kulyayi, the site of Well 42. Janie says that stockman had given her parents bullock meat and tobacco. They liked bullo...

Jill Jack (bush name Tjunjun) was born at Christmas Creek around 1955. Her parents had been part of the large desert migrations of the 1940s and 1950s, where people moved north towards the cattle station country of the Fitzroy Valley.

Jills mother came from Ja...

Judy Napangardi Martin was born about 1940 in Warlpiri country near Yuendumu in the Tanami Desert. She is the eldest daughter of famous painter Lorna Napurrula Fencer, and is half sister to Judy Napangardi Watson. Judy was painting during the 1990's at Lajamanu Community, l...

Judy Watson was born at Yarungkanji, Mt. Doreen Station, around 1935, at the time when many Warlpiri and other Central and Western Desert Peoples were living a traditional nomadic life. With her family Judy made many trips on foot to her country and lived for long periods a...

Kim West Napurrula is a Pintubi woman born near Kiwirrkurra, south of Lake Mackay, in the Gibson Desert in Western Australia, in 1960. She was married to Yuendumu George. Her country is around Marrapinti, a significant Women's Dreaming site, and incorporates soakages in dese...

Kudditji Kngwarreye was born about 1928 at Alhalkere at Utopia Station, located about 270 kms north east of Alice Springs. His language is Eastern Anmatyerre. He is the younger brother of renowned artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye, and began painting in the early 1980's. Kudditji...

Lilly Kelly Napangardi is a senior law woman of the Mt Liebig community, in the Haasts Bluff area of the Northern Territory, 325 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs.

Lilly Kelly was born at Haasts Bluff in 1948. She moved to the newly established settlement of P...

Lily Hargraves Nungarrayi is a senior Warlpiri women born in the Tanami Desert around 1930. In the early 1950's Nungarrayi moved to the settlement of Lajamanu, located at Hookers Creek, when the Warlpiri population at Yuendemu had outgrown that settlement's ability to house...

Linda Syddick is a Pintupi woman who was born at Lake MacKay in the Gibson Desert, WA, in 1937. Her Aboriginal name is Tjunkiya Wukula Napaltjarri. Linda was raised in the traditional nomadic fashion until the age of eight or nine, when her family walked out of the desert an...

The passing of the highly significant artist Lorna Napurrula Fencer in 2006 marked the end of a breathtaking flourish of artistic output in the seventh and eighth decades of the artists life. Represented in the Australian National Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, other...

Makinti Napanangka is a senior Pintupi woman, born around 1932, who now resides at Kintore Community. She was introduced to acrylic painting in 1995 as a member of the Haasts Bluff-Kintore painting project conducted at Kintore. Makinti quickly developed her style and has hel...

Maureen Hudson is a Warlpiri woman, born in 1959 at Mt Allen, about 300 Kms north of Alice Springs. She began painting in 1988. Maureen's paintings draw on traditional Warlpiri Dreaming stories, and incorporate her own distinctive sense of colour and innovation of design. Ma...

Mickey Singleton has lived most of his life between Yuendumu, an Aboriginal community located 290kms northwest of Alice Springs and Nyirrpi, a community which started as an outstation as an outstation of Yuendumu, located a further 160 kms west into the bush.

Mickey...

Minnie Pwerle was born around 1910 in the region of Utopia, about 250 Kms north-east of Alice Springs. Her country is Atnwengerrp and her language is Anmatyerre and Alyawarr.

Minnie Pwerle made her first paintings at Utopia Community in September 1999 when she was ...

Mitjili Napurrula is a Pintupi woman from the Haasts Bluff region, located 200 km west of Alice Springs. She was born about 1945 and is half sister to artist Turkey Tjupurrula Tolson. She married Long Tom Tjapanangka at Papunya in the 1960's, and they later lived at Haasts B...

Nada Rawlins was born about 1936 near Kirriwirri, in the southern stretches of Wangkatjungka country, in Western Australias Great Sandy Desert. This country incorporates Percival lakes, a chain of salt lakes running for hundreds of kilometers across the desert. The traditio...

Ngoia Pollard is a Warlpiri woman, born in Haasts Bluff in the late 1940's. She was brought up at Haasts Bluff and remembers when people rode on camels to travel anywhere, and also talks of the time when women and young girls had to look after herds of goats. In her recolle...

Nora Tjookootja was born around 1945 at Liturwarti in the Great Sandy Desert. As a young child she left her home country and walked up the Canning Stock Route to Bililuna. Many desert people were moving north towards the white settlements of the Kimberley cattle station coun...

Nyuju Stumpy Brown is a senior Wangkatjungka woman born around 1924 at Ngapawarlu in Western Australias Great Sandy Desert. Stumpy is a full sister to the late artist Rover Thomas. She lost her mother and father at an early age and was raised by her uncle, Jamali who was dr...

Penny K Lyons is a senior Walmajarri woman who was born c1940 at Wanywurtu under a tutujarti tree (desert walnut tree), in the Great Sandy Desert. She grew up in that place with her family, one father, two mothers, one brother and two sisters. There is a rockhole with sprin...

Peter Goodijie (bush name Kurtiji) is a senior Wangkatjungka lawman and was born about 1925 at Kulyayi, near Well 42 on the Canning Stock Route, in Western Australias Great Sandy Desert. Kurtijis mother was Walmajarri and his father Wangkatjungka. His paintings record the...

Queenie McKenzie (1915- 1998) was born at Old Texas Downs Station on the Ord River, to the south-east of Turkey Creek. She grew up among Gija people and speaks Gija as her first language. Queenie was the first women painter to gain prominence in the East Kimberley school of...

Rosie says of her early life:

When I left my home lands, came north on the Canning Stock Route to Bililuna, Old Balgo. Catholic Mission there. Most Wangkajunka people travelled that way, when they left the desert to go towards white settlement.

No mother...

Shorty Jangala Robertson was born in the 1930's at Jila (Chilla Well), a large soakage and claypan north west of Yuendumu. He lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle with his parents, older brother and extended Warlpiri family. They travelled vast distances across desert...

Teresa Purla is the daughter of Barbara Weir, and the granddaughter of the late Minnie Pwerle, both highly reputed Utopia artists. Teresa was born in Darwin in 1963, and spent a number of her early years living in Papunya with her mother and father.

In her adult lif...

Tommy Carroll is a Gija man, born in 1956 on Doon Doon Station, 100 kilometers north of Warmun Community in the East Kimberley. As a young boy he worked as a stockman at Doon Doon, and throughout his youth he also worked on Bow River and Lissadell Stations. He currently assi...

Walangkura Napanangka was born about 1940 in the bush at Tjiturulnga, west of Walungurru (Kintore) - in the Gibson Desert, near the Western Australia/ Northern Territory border. Her family was amongst a group of Pintupi people who made their way to the Ikuntji settlement (Ha...

Wentja Napaltjarri was born at Malparinga, and grew up west of Kintore in her father's country, located in the Gibson Desert on the Western Australia/ Northern Territory border. Wentja is the daughter of one of the founders of the Desert painting movement, Shorty Langkata. W...

Willie Kew (bush name Luurn) was born about 1930 at the Kingfisher (Luurn) Dreaming site at Nyirla Rockhole, in the Great Sandy Desert near Well 38 (Wartuparni) on the Canning Stock Route. Willie Kews Dreaming and his own bush name identify him with the mythic Kingfisher th...