Eileen Napaltjarri

Eileen Napaltjarri is a Kintore based artist who paints stories from her father’s ancestral country at Tjitjurrulnga (also known as Titjurrulpa rock hole) which is located west of Kintore. The artist depicts this traditional country with long rows of sandhills that form rhythmic patterns across the canvas. Occasionally the lines of hills diverge and then meet up again to reveal a desert water source located in the rock hole.

Eileen Napaltjarri was born in 1956 at Haasts Bluff. Her father was Charlie Tararu Tjungurrayi, who was a founding artist of the early Desert Art movement at Papunya. Charlie Tararu had a strong reputation for his innovative artworks, as did Eileen’s mother, Tatali Nangala, who was a prolific painter. Eileen is married to senior Kintore artist Kenny Williams Tjampitjinpa.

Eileen Napaltjarri originally moved from Haasts Bluff to Kintore in the early 1980s, travelling there with her family when the new outstation was first established.  Eileen Napaltjarri spent time watching her parents as they worked on their paintings. Then after her mother died in 1999, Eileen set about painting those stories that had been passed down to her.  Writer Nicolas Rothwell described her work as  “rhythmically abstract paintings”, in a 2006 Papunya Tula exhibition in Alice Springs, that “have become the newest sign of the inventiveness of Kintore women.”

Eileen Napaltjarri has consolidated her reputation as one of the most important second-generation Aboriginal artists of the Western Desert movement. Eileen Napaltjarri is represented in major collections including in Australian National Gallery, Art Gallery of NSW and Artbank Collection. Japingka Gallery curated a solo exhibition of Eileen Napaltjarri’s paintings in 2008. Aboriginal art status – Established artist. A selection of paintings by Eileen Napaltjarri is available from Japingka Gallery, where collectors can buy Aboriginal art online with certainty of quality, authenticity and provenance of artworks.

Selected Exhibitions

2005     Rising Stars – Papunya, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
2005     Papunya Tula Artists – New Work for a New Space, Utopia Art Sydney,
2005     Eileen Napaltjarri – Lines, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney
2006     Papunya Tula Arstist – Across the Board, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney
2006     PTA – Papunya tula Artist, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney
2006     The Togart Contemporary Art Exhibition, Parliament House, Darwin, NT
2006     Yawulyurru kapalilu palyara nintilpayi – grandmothers teaching culture and ceremony, Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs, NT
2007     Big Paintings from Papunya Tula Artists, Utopia Art Sydney, Sydney
2007     Papunya Tula Artists 2007, Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne
2008     Eileen Napaltjarri, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, WA