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Barbara Napangarti Reid is a
Ngaanyatjarra woman working in a individualistic style depicting the
country of Tjukurla in the Gibson Desert, Western Australia. Barbara's
paintings are beautiful depictions of place, paintings of the lands to
which she is custodian and the songs that explain them. Characteristic
for Barbara is the depiction of puli - rock formations, and tuli - sand
hills, those features that are so much a part of the land from which she
comes. Also vital to Barbara's work is the telling of women's sacred
stories - minyma - narratives that revolve around the role of the woman
as healer and provider within Ngaanyatjarra society. With their
beautiful lyricism and exquisite tonal palette Barbara's paintings work
to capture the viewer, mesmerising with their quiet intensity and
irrepressible joy.
Barbara has been painting as
early as 1987 where she first started with the Centre for Aboriginal
Artists in Alice Springs. Barbara and family have now moved to Alice
Springs where she paints in the studios of Gallery Gondwana.
Barbara Reid Napangarti– Minyma Tingari
This collection of paintings describes
aspects of the secret and sacred Tingari Cycle, a spiritual
journey that incorporates story, song and ceremony. They narrate the
stories of the Tingari women who travelled vast stretches of the
country performing rituals, which in turn brought into being the land
formations of particular sites.
In this series of paintings Barbara depicts
the Minyma Tingari - the telling of women’s ceremonial stories that
relate to the natural environment surrounding Tjukurla which is
dominated by expansive sandhills and rockholes containing water where
bush foods are found.
Barbara depicts the Tingari women –
represented by the U shapes– sitting around ceremonial ground, depicted
by the concentric circles. The wider U shapes are the windbreaks the
women use, and around them are the features of this particular
landscape, pintalypa, a native bush-apple, represented by
the red-ochre oval shapes
EXHIBITIONS:
-
"Salt, Sand and Spinifex" Japingka Gallery,
June 2000.
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"Barbara Napangarti Reid" Vivien Anderson
Gallery, August 2000
- 17th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander
Art Award, Darwin N.T.
COLLECTIONS
- Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern
Territory, Darwin.
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