Mary Dixon Nungurrayi

Born near Town Bore Creek, east of Papunya, in 1960—the year the settlement was officially opened—Mary Dixon identifies with the Warlpiri language group but considers the area around Haasts Bluff, where she grew up, as her country.

She moved to the Mt Liebig settlement when it was established, which is closer to Warlpiri country. Mary and her husband, Colin Dixon, have four children. The artist Maudie Petersen is her sister. Mary began painting in the mid-1980s when Papunya Tula Artists started making regular trips to Mt Liebig to support the artists living there.

Mary often paints Witchetty Grub Dreaming and a Milky Way Dreaming that explores the origins of Venus, Orion, and the Pleiades. Her work was featured in exhibitions by the Centre for Aboriginal Artists, including one at the Gauguin Museum in Tahiti in 1988 and another at the Chapman Gallery, for which Mary traveled to Canberra. She has also been included in several publications focusing on the painters associated with the Centre for Aboriginal Artists.

Ceremony is the underlying basis of Aboriginal song, music, dance, and visual arts, containing many significant elements, some of which are specifically related to the movements and activities of Ancestral Tjukurrpa Women.