Suzanne O’Connell Gallery presents “Painting for our Mother, Walking in her Footprints” an exhibition by Julie & Sabrina Nangala Robertson in association with Warlukurlangu Artists of Yuendumu.
Julie Nangala Robertson (NATSIAA General Painting Award Winner for 2023) and Sabrina Nangala Robertson are Warlpiri artists who have worked for Warlukurlangu in Yuendumu since the mid 2000s. They come from a rich artistic lineage of Warlpiri painters, the granddaughters of Paddy Japanangka Lewis and Short Jangala Robertson. Their mother was the renowned artist Dorothy Napangardi, one of the leading painters of the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. It was sitting beside their mother, under her watchful eye, that Julie and Sabrina began their foray into painting over 20 years ago.
While reminiscent of the delicate work of their mother, both sisters’ have experimented and developed a creative visual language all their own. Their intricately dotted networks of lines convey a celebration and remembrance of country of their parents Dorothy Napangardi and Windy Jampjinpa Weiru. Sabrina paints her father’s country. The Ngapa Jukurrpa (Water Dreaming) at the rocky outcrop of Pirlinyarnu, west of Yuendumu, which is associated with rain and lightning narratives. Julie is also ‘kirda’ (owner) for this country and story. Some of her paintings depict the patterns and flow of water at Pirlinyarnu, however the majority of Julie’s works now represent her mother’s birth site of Mina Mina.
Mina Mina is part of the salt lake system of Lake Mckay that borders the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Mina Mina is defined by claypans which fill with water after the rain, sandhills, and desert oaks. It is a profoundly important women’s site were ancestral women with magical powers transformed the landscape and danced the world into being. As the eldest of Dorothy’s daughters, Julie feels immense pride to continue to share knowledge and narratives her mother illuminated of the Kanakurlangu Women and their epic travels from Mina Mina. To trace the movement of the ancestral women and the tracks they left on the sand as they danced across the country.
At the beginning of August Julie’s painting Mina Mina won the General Painting Award at the 2003 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. This is the same award her mother had been a finalist in multiple times, and was awarded the overall prize in 2001. Julie spoke lovingly of how her mother taught her to view country and pattern in a unique way. She was overjoyed to see her work on display. When she took to the stage she spoke in Warlpiri saying “My mother stood on this stage, now I am standing on this stage. I am painting in her memory. She is walking alongside me. I am walking in her footsteps.”
Both daughters have dedicatedly been painting to honour and remember their mother. It was her wish that they become artists like her. It is with immense pride that they present this collection of works and step in to the light and recognition their mother hoped they would received.
Julie Nangala Robertson, July 2023
“I learnt to be an artist by watching my mother Dorothy Napangardi paint. I grew up sitting next to her, watching how she built up the dots and made her paintings. She painted in her own way and it was different to any other paintings I had seen. She saw country in her own way. She would look at the hills, the expanse of sandhills or the pattern of perentie skin. She would then recreate that texture and colours on her canvas. Her dots are the tracks of the woman walking and dancing at Mina Mina. Women and Water Dreaming. I use to paint my own site however after my mother’s death, I have painted and focused on Mina Mina. To continue to honour my mothers country and her narratives. When I paint, I think of my mother and the stories she told me. I remember her voice and the joy with which she spoke about Mina Mina and being on country, hunting and dancing. When I am painting I think of my mother. In the quiet moments I reflect on they ways our lives are similar. It makes me happy and proud to be recreating the steps of the woman at Mina Mina and honouring my mother. I am following in her footprints, recreating her story and memory. ”
