Naata Nungurrayi is a tribal Pintupi nomad; she was born c.1932 at the Rockhole site of Kumil, west of the Pollock Hills in Western Australia, her western desert people were the last of the traditional nomads to wander into the new world. She came from a sophisticated culture where art and song was as important as food gathering. Law and order was strict, and ceremonial life expressed spiritual values through the continuation of the mythological traditions of the past. However, the Pintupi never moved beyond the Stone Age until contact was made with European people. They were Stone Age people in the true sense, they used wood, stone and bone to make their tools, they did not make metal and therefore, were never able to boil water. They were forced to be nomadic hunters and gatherers because of the harsh climatic conditions. Rainfall in the central desert was minimal and consequently no crops could be grown and also no Australian animal could be domesticated.
Natta Nungurrayi was never influenced by the iconographies of Christian and Enlightenment thinking. Her vision was raw and had more in common with those primitive societies who, like her, utilized squares, circles, and triangles and parallel lines to represent topography. In aboriginal art the circle is used as a boundary and an enclosure in that it marks a place of a gathering or an event as much as it represents creation and manifestation.
Naata Nungurrayi first started painting in 1994. Her paintings deal with ‘woman’s Law’, and the campsite experiences of her people, gathering seeds, fruit and berries, the preparation and cooking of food. Essentially her prime interest is in women’s business. She is concerned with the dreaming’s that are inextricably fused with women’s sacred sites and women’s ceremonies, however like most traditional elders will not disclose any ceremonial content.
From 2011-2014 she became less interested in dotting her paintings in the usual manner of the traditional desert painters, preferring to use primarily lines and circle formations to represent the iconography of her country. In a significant way her paintings are complex road maps that show elements of her ancient culture situated endemically within the landscape.
Naata is firmly established as one of Australia’s leading artists. A work measuring 150cm x 180cm achieved a record price of $216,000 in Sotheby’s Auction 2007 and was followed up in 2015 by a stunning piece of the same size reaching the top price – again, $216,000, at the prestigious Laverty Collection Auction.
Naata’s artworks have been accepted in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Telstra Awards every year since first being entered in 2000 – an incredible recognition of the standing of this artist. She was also named among the Top 50 of Australia’s Most Collectable Artists in Australian Art Collector January – March, 2004. In 2003, one of Naata’s paintings appeared on an Australia Post stamp special edition titled Art of Papunya Tula.
