Ningura Napurrula / Women’s Ceremony

A senior Pintupi artist who learned painting through the early Papunya Tula movement before establishing her own practice. Her powerful work carries women’s cultural knowledge and ancestral Western Desert narratives. Yala Yala was one of the founding artists who began the Papunya Tula Art movement in the formative 1970’s and on occasion Ningura assisted Yala Yala with his artworks.

Ningura was born at Watulka, south of the Kiwirrkura Community, circa 1938. Ningura observed the male artists in Papunya practice and listened to them discussing the importance of the narratives, and in 1996 Ningura began creating art in her own right for the Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative. In 2000, Ningura participated in a collaborative painting, “Kintore Women’s Art-making”, by senior Pintupi women, which was included in the ‘Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney.