Untitled 

Makinti Napanangka made this painting with acrylic paint on canvas. She was among the first group of women from the Papunya Tula community to begin painting in the mid-1990s, adapting traditional Indigenous art forms to a contemporary medium. The parallel lines of ochre and yellow seem simply applied, and are laid down with an economy of effort. But their effect is more than decorative. They invoke ancestral stories of the land, and the patterns of the natural world, which are rich with social meaning for the artist. They are also a powerful demonstration of the artist’s material knowledge and painting skill. Napanangka was the subject of a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a sign that her work moves beyond traditional categories of Indigenous or craft practice. It’s a reminder that when we look closely at how something is made, we can begin to understand its broader significance.