Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi / Grandmother’s Country (19784)

Born in 1967 at Mt Allan (Yuelamu) in the Northern Territory, Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi is the eldest daughter of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, one of Australia’s most renowned Aboriginal artists. Guided by her father from an early age, Gabriella began painting while still a child, developing both her artistic skill and deep cultural knowledge through close family and community connections.

Her work is grounded in the Dreaming stories passed down through her paternal grandmother, Long Rose Nungala, and senior Anmatyerre women, whose teachings shaped Gabriella’s understanding of Country, ceremony, and women’s law. These important cultural narratives include Grandmother’s Country, Seven Sisters Dreaming (Milky Way), Bush Tucker, Goanna, Serpent, and Women’s Ceremony stories.

Gabriella’s exceptional talent was recognised early when, at just 16 years old, she became the youngest artist to win the prestigious Alice Springs Art Award while attending Yirara College. Her artistic development was further enriched through her close association with the pioneering Papunya Tula painters, including her father, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, Long Jack Phillipus and Johnny Warrankgula Tjupurrula.

While Gabriella’s art honours the traditions of her Anmatyerre heritage, she has also developed a distinctive style of her own, celebrated for its vibrant colour palettes, intricate compositions, and masterful dot work. Her paintings powerfully combine cultural storytelling with contemporary expression, making her one of the most respected Aboriginal artists of her generation.

Over her accomplished career, Gabriella has exhibited extensively throughout Australia and internationally, with her works held in important private and public collections. Among her many notable achievements, her 2008 commission for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, depicting her custodial Grandmother’s Country, formed part of a Gold Medal-winning garden design by Jamie Durie. An original work by Gabriella was subsequently presented to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and now hangs in the Royal Collection alongside her father’s work.

Gabriella’s career has also included major public commissions such as the Melbourne Art Tram project and the Vivid Sydney projection programme at the Sydney Opera House, further cementing her place as a leading figure in contemporary Aboriginal art.

Now based in Melbourne with her family, Gabriella continues to travel widely and paint with the same passion and cultural integrity that have defined her career. Her artworks are highly sought after both nationally and internationally, admired not only for their striking beauty but also for their powerful connection to Anmatyerre culture, storytelling, and heritage.

Selected Collections
• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
• Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide
• Holmes A Court Collection, Perth
• Kelton Foundation Collection, Santa Monica
• Winterthur Collection, Switzerland
• Corrigan Collection, Sydney
• Royal Collection, HRH Queen Elizabeth, UK
• Richard Branson Collection, UK
• Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs
• Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
• Maroondah City Council Art Collection, Maroondah, VIC, Australia
• Hank Ebes Collection, Melbourne
• Gillian & Watson McAllister Collection, Sydney

Awards, Installations & Commissions

• 2022 Connection | Songlines from Australia’s First Peoples in a spectacular immersive experience, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
• 2020 Gabriella’s artwork was chosen to be exhibited at the Dubai Expo
• 2016 Vivid Projection Programme, Opera House, Sydney
• 2014 Art Tram, Melbourne Festival, Melbourne
• 2008 Chelsea Flower Show – Gold Medal
• 1993 Alice Springs Art Prize, Record Cover for ‘Coloured Stone’

Selected Exhibitions

• 2026 Nangara 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2026 The Sky Above, The Land Below, Tambaran Gallery, New York, USA
• 2025 At The Gallery, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
• 2025 Ties That Bind: Family Matters, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2025 Bush Garden, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
• 2025 Great Affinities, L’Appartement Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland
• 2024 The Art of the First Man, Tambaran Gallery, New York, USA
• 2024 ICONIC, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2024 The Art of Giving, Art Gallery of Macquarie University, Sydney
• 2023 Vividly Bold, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2023 Possum Family, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2023 O Lounge Exhibition, Australian Open Tennis, Melbourne
• 2022 Connection, National Museum of Australia, Canberra
• 2022 Colour Pop, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2021 Gillian and Watson McAllister Collection, Cooee Art, Sydney
• 2021 The Seven Sisters and the Night Sky, Art Mob, Hobart
• 2020 Family Business – The Art of the Possum Family, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2020 The Continuing Legacy of Clifford Possum: Clifford, Gabriella, Michelle, Coo-ee Art Gallery, Sydney
• 2019 Generations II, Mitchelton Gallery of Aboriginal Art, Nagambie, Victoria
• 2019 Beyond Time, Australian Aboriginal Art, Booker Lowe Gallery, Houston, USA
• 2019 Of Earth and Fire, Exhibition of Maroondah City Council Art Collection, Melbourne
• 2019 Seven Sisters, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2019 International Women’s Day, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2019 Landscape Colours, Japingka Aboriginal Art, Fremantle
• 2018 20/20 Vision: 20 Years 20 Women, Brenda Colahan Fine Art, Sydney
• 2018 Beyond the Veil, Olsen Gruin, New York, USA
• 2017 Talking about Country | Possum Sisters, Japingka Aboriginal Art, Fremantle
• 2016 From the Sand to the Sails | a Possum Family Show, Kate Owen Gallery, Sydney
• 2015 Gabriella Possum Nungurrayi & Michelle Possum Nungurrayi, Japingka Aboriginal Art, Fremantle
• 2012 Heirs and Successors, Japingka Gallery, Fremantle
• 2009 Starry Starry Nights, Framed Gallery, Darwin
• 2009 Generations, Aranda Aboriginal Art, Melbourne
• 2008 Chelsea Flower Show, London, UK
• 2008 Art Aborigene Australien, Paris, France
• 2007 London Art Fair, London, UK
• 2007 Shanghai Art Fair, Shanghai, China
• 2006 Dreaming Their Way, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, USA
• 2006 Shanghai Art Fair, Shanghai, China
• 2001 Mia Mia Gallery, Melbourne
• 2000 United Nations Building, New York, USA
• 1999 Aboriginal Art Galleries of Australia, Melbourne
• 1999 Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide
• 1998 Sztuka Aborygenow – (Art of the Aborigines), Warsaw, Poland
• 1997 The Milky Way Dreaming, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London, UK
• 1996 Nangara: The Australian Aboriginal Art Exhibition from the Ebes Collection, Oud Sint-Jan, Bruges, Belgium
• 1993 London, UK
• 1993 Bern, Switzerland
• 1992 Coo-ee Gallery, Sydney
• 1992 Washington DC, USA
• 1988 Aboriginal Dot Painting, Melbourne
• 1987 Brisbane – in conjunction with her father, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri

In this painting the artist depicts motifs that give symbolic form to tribal women engaged in cultural activities in a desert environment known as Yuelamu, which the women inherited from their Ancestral Grandmother, who travelled to this Anmatyerre site in the Tanami Desert during the Dreamtime, at Creation.

Represented as symbolic U-shapes, the women are shown in different areas collecting wild growing bush food, which is given form through star-like shapes that represent berry bushes, while clusters of encased small dots and large dots serve to represent various types of berries and bush plums that the women collect. The red fire-like motif represents the women’s campfire and ceremonial site where the women gather for ceremony and engage in ritual song and dance and create body art and sand paintings, which the concentric circles in this work depict and double to act as specific sites where bush food is in plenty. Rain nourishes the desert and is captured through the white dotted motifs , which also serves to double as pipe-clay used as paint in the ritual life of Yuelamu`s women, who follow their Ancestral Grandmother’s example in her home country, which is the subject of this work.