Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri / Nyrripi – Father’s Country (BCS117)

c. 1947 – 2022

Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri was born around 1947 at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory. She belonged to the Walpiri/Luritja language groups and her ancestral country was Yamunturrngu (Mt. Liebig).

She grew up living a traditional life at Haasts Bluff, attended school in Papunya, and as a young woman carried out domestic duties. Ngoia married fellow artist Jack Tjampitjinpa Pollard (deceased). They lived at Kintore before settling in Mt. Liebig, where she raised her family and became a Senior Artist with Watiyawanu Artists of Mt. Liebig, alongside Lilly Kelly Napangardi and Wentja Napaltjarri.

Like many wives of the early Papunya Tula artists, Ngoia was first introduced to painting through assisting her husband. She began creating artworks in her own right in 1997, focusing on her father’s country and its sacred Walpiri Dreamings, iconography, and narratives.

Her paintings are characterised by distinctive oval forms representing the swamps and lakes of her father’s homeland—places where he hunted and passed on cultural knowledge to his daughter. These works often reference the ancestral watersnake who resides beneath the harsh terrain. Her imagery, combined with delicate infill dotting, results in works that are both powerful and visually striking.

Ngoia’s artistic achievements were widely recognised. In 2004 she won first prize in the Centralian Advocate Award, and in 2006 she received Australia’s most prestigious Indigenous art accolade, the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA).

Until her passing in 2022, Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri was celebrated as a significant and influential figure in the Aboriginal art world.

AWARDS

• 2006 Winner 23rd Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.
• 2004 Winner Advocate Central Australian Award, NT

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

• National Gallery of Victoria
• National Gallery of Australia
• Art Gallery of South Australia
• Queensland Art Gallery
• Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
• Corrigan Collection, London
• Centraal Museum Utrecht, Netherlands
• Hood Museum of Art, USA
• Australian High Commission Papua New Guinea
• ArtBank, Sydney
• Kelton Foundation, USA
• Donald Kahn Collection, USA

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

• 2011 Papunya Tula Artists Community III, Utopia Art Sydney
• 2011 Parcours des Mondes, Arts d’Australie, Stephane Jacob, Paris, France
• 2010 Papunya Tula Artists Community, Utopia Art, Sydney
• 2010 Art Elysees, Arts d’Australie, Stephane Jacob, Paris, France.
• 2010 Emerging Elders, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
• 2008 Lineart, Arts d’Australie, Stephane Jacob, Gens, Belgium.
• 2008 Parcours des Mondes, Arts d Australie Stephane Jacob, Paris, France
• 2006 New works by Wentja Napaltjarri and Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri, Neil Murphy Indigenous Art in Association with Watiyawanu Artists, Mt. Liebig, Depot II Gallery, Sydney

Ngoia has depicted her father’s country and narratives referring to the water snake. The oval shapes in her works are iconographic representations of the swamps and lakes near Nyrripi, North West of Amunturngu (Mount Liebig). Ngoia depicts the different seasonal characteristics of this country. The area is known to have the spiritual presence of the water snake, which lives beneath the surface. Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri had particular custodianship obligations for this country.