Gladys Daniels b. 1968

Gladys Daniels grew up close to the renowned painting community of Papunya in the Northern Territory, some 340km west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Gladys is the daughter of celebrated artist, Barney Daniels Tjungarrayi (1950-1998), who taught her to paint when she was a young girl growing up at 5 Mile Outstation. Gladys’s sister, Cecily Daniels, is also a talented artist.

Gladys paints the tali (sandhills) that define the topography of her desert country. Her style of painting is characteristic of Western Desert artists, using dot and line work to represent ancient, sacred Dreaming stories. Using this seemingly simple mark-making technique, Gladys creates incredible optical-style art with rhythm, movement and depth. The sandhills that span her country, along with all the topographic features of the land, are believed to have been formed by the travels of ancestral beings during the ancient Creation era. The ancient Tingari Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) songlines trace the movements of the Tingari ancestors, and form the basis of traditional law, social structure, and ceremonial life for people of the Pintupi and Luritja language groups of the Western desert regions. Gladys has a meticulous technique lends her canvases a mesmerising effect, and her colour palettes capture the essence of the undulating desert landscape.