Sharon Porter Napangardi b. 1976

Sharon Porter Napangardi grew up primarily in the remote community of Walungurru (Kintore) in the Northern Territory, some 40km from the Western Australia border. In her youth, Sharon moved around between the communities of Warakurna, Tjukurla and Kaltukatjara in Western Australia and later attended Yirara College in Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Sharon’s family moved to the community of Warumpi (Papunya) in the 1970s during the emergence of the Western Desert art movement. Sharon is the granddaughter of two esteemed artists, Tjawina Porter Nampitjinpa and Katjarra Butler. Sharon grew up watching and assisting Katjarra while she painted for Papunya Tula Artists Co-op. Sharon is also elder sister to artist Rosemary Porter Nampitjinpa.

Sharon paints her grandmother Katjarra’s country, the tali (sandhill) country east of Kiwirrkurra – the rockholes and soakage sites between the dunes, and the ceremonial sites where native medicinal botanicals and bush tucker are gathered. Sharon says she paints the Dreaming story of her grandmother’s country, but in her own way. Around this particular place, all the minyma (women) were sitting down beside a rockhole, drinking water from it and eating berries and bush tucker. They stayed sitting so long that they became the stones that now rest in this sacred place.

Sharon depicts her ancestral desert country and the stories that have been passed to her from her elders; her choice to paint in bright, bold colour palettes gives her canvases a refreshing, contemporary flair.