Bronwyn Marshall Nangala b. 1974

Bronwyn Marshall Nangala was born in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) in 1974, and grew up in the community of Papunya in the remote Northern Territory. Papunya is a place of great cultural and artistic significance and is widely considered the birthplace of the Western Desert contemporary art movement. Bronwyn is sister to acclaimed artist, Esther Bruno Nangala.

Bronwyn paints Tjala Tjukurpa - Honey Ant Dreaming. Bronwyn says this is a ‘travelling story’, which started further west, and ended at Papunya, the ‘resting place’ of this Dreaming. The three hills at Papunya form an important site, together representing the form of an ancestral Honey Ant. This is Bronwyn’s grandfather’s country. Using a dotting technique that is characteristic of the Western Desert painting movement, Bronwyn creates symbols to depict the journey of women to collect the honey ants. The u-shapes around the central roundels represents the minyma (women) who are digging for the prized tucker, with their piti (coolamons) and wana (digging sticks) beside them. The honey ants dig tunnels deep into the ground in arid woodland country, creating branching chambers in the roots of the mulga trees. Aboriginal people know to look for the ants coming from small holes in the earth, and they know how to follow the tunnels to reveal the larger nests full of the ants and their larvae.

Bronwyn has been around artists and family members painting for many years, however she only began painting 2-3 years ago. She says painting makes her very happy and she wasn’t expecting it to make her so happy. Bronwyn enjoys painting in vibrant, warm tones, using lines of dotting that successfully achieve an op-art aesthetic, creating movement and depth on her canvases.