Norah Nelson Napaljarri
| Norah Nelson Napaljarri | |
|---|---|
| Born |
26 October 1956 Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Known for | Painting |
| Notable work | Yiwarra (Milky Way) dreaming mosaic, Supreme Court of the Northern Territory |
Norah Nelson Napaljarri (born 26 October 1956) is a Warlpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Norah Nelson began painting in 1986, and has exhibited her works both in Australia and other countries. Her paintings and pottery are held in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.
Norah Nelson was born at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory, north-west of Alice Springs on 26 October 1956. She married artist Jakamarra Frank 'Bronson' Nelson, who was deceased by 1994.
'Napaljarri' (in Warlpiri) or 'Napaltjarri' (in Western Desert dialects) is a skin name, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans. Thus 'Norah Nelson' is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers.
Contemporary Indigenous art of the western desert began when Indigenous men at Papunya began painting in 1971, assisted by teacher Geoffrey Bardon. Their work, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across Indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983. By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally. The first artists, including all of the founders of the Papunya Tula artists' company, had been men, and there was resistance amongst the Pintupi men of central Australia to women painting. However, there was also a desire amongst many of the women to participate, and in the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings. In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.
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