Debra Young Nakamarra / Women’s Ceremony (DY16)

Debra began painting in the mid 1980s, along with her sisters Katherine Marshall Nakamarra and Lorraine Yungut Nakamarra. Painting with their mother, the highly-acclaimed Pintupi artist Walangkura Napanangka, the three sisters have inherited her stories and iconography for representing them.

Debra’s father, Johnny Yungut Tjupurrula, was also a successful Papunya Tula artist, as were her mother’s sister, Pirrmangka Napanangka, and her grandmother, Inyuwa Nampitjinpa.

Similarities can be seen between Debra’s work and the bold style of the Papunya Tula movement. This is especially evident in the way the paint is applied in thick, joined dots. Debra has developed her own palette of colours and her personal way of representing the iconography to depict the traditional sacred women’s sites in the Kintore area, located 250km west of her birthplace.

Debra is most certainly a talented artist; her works are bold, culturally significant and create a sense of powerful energy.

Selected Exhibitions

2011
• Black and White and Red All Over, Gallery 1, Noosa, QLD
• Passing Down Stories, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle, QLD
• Desert Dreamings, Leslie Smith Gallery, Netherlands

2010
• Red Sands Gallery, Eumundi, QLD
• Papunya Tula Art Gallery, Alice Springs, NT
• Harrison Galleries, Paddington, NSW

2009
• Papunya Tula Art Gallery, Alice Springs, NT

Stunning colours and heavy dot work are used to depict traditional sacred women’s sites in the Kintore area, which is located 250km west of Debra’s birthplace. The concentric circles commonly seen in her paintings represent the important ceremonial sites for Debra and her ancestors and the connecting lines between the circles are the ancient travelling paths that lead to these sites.