Theresa Campbell Nangala b. 1985

Theresa Campbell Nangala was born in 1985 in Kiwirrkurra, a remote community in Western Australia nestled in the Gibson Desert, over 800km west of Mparntwe, Alice Springs. Theresa has been painting for over ten years and often paints with her mother, well-established artist Bambatu Napangardi. Bambatu taught her daughters how to paint her stories and they frequently collaborate on large canvases together. Bambatu is widow to Dinni Campbell Tjampitjinpa, Theresa’s father, also a notable artist from the Papunya Tula art movement of the early 1970s. Theresa's sister, Christine Campbell Nangala, is also a talented artist. 

Theresa paints designs associated with the Tingari Dreaming or Tingari Song Cycle. Her style of painting is characteristic of Western Desert artists, using dot and line work to represent ancient, sacred Dreaming stories. For Pintupi peoples, all features of the landscape are believed to have been formed by the travels of the Tingari, ancestral beings who traversed the continent 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. Theresa’s paintings capture the essence of the undulating desert landscape, and the tali (sandhills) that define the topography of her ancestral country.