Description

Extended Data

DAAO URL

https://www.daao.org.au/bio/norah-napaljarri-nelson

Birth Place

Haasts Bluff, NT, Australia

Biography

Born 26 October 1956 Haasts Bluff, NT, Norah Nelson is a Warlpiri speaker who lives at Yuendumu. Her main country is the Ngarlkirdu Dreaming at Naru. She began assisting her husband Bronson (Frank) Jakamarra Nelson on his paintings in about 1986, emerging within a year as an artist in her own right. She first exhibited in September 1987 at the Karnta (Women) exhibition at the Esplanade Gallery in Darwin, and has since shown her work widely, in exhibitions of Warlukurlangu Artists in Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Alice Springs. She has also shown at Galeria Alfredo Melgar in Madrid and, independently of Warlukurlangu Artists, at the Dreamtime Gallery in Perth, where her first two person show with Bronson Nelson in February 1990 was a featured event at the Perth Festival. She paints Ngaru (Bush Plum), Ngarlkirdi (Witchetty Grubs), Ngarlikirdi/Warna (Witchetty Grub/Snake), Karntajarra (Two Women), and Pangkurlangu (Giant) Dreamings and recently her very successful series of Yiwarra (Milky Way) Dreamings, which are painted with the permission of Paddy Sims , a senior custodian of that Dreaming in the Yuendumu community. All of this series of works have gone into major public and private collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Holmes à Court Collection and the Darwin Supreme Court, which also selected the painting to be made into a mosaic for the central courtyard of the new court complex. Writers: Johnson, Vivien Date written: 1994 Last updated: 2011

Born

b. 1956

Summary

Warlpiri artist who was living at Yuendumu when she began painting in about 1987. She is renowned for her Milky Way paintings, produced with the permission of the Dreaming's custodian Paddy Sims, one of which was made into a mosaic in the new court complex in Darwin.

Gender

Female

Died

None listed

Age at death

None listed