Judy Watson Napangardi c. 1925-2016

Judy Watson Napangardi was born at Yarungkanji - on Mt Doreen Station - in the Northern Territory, some 320km north-west of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). Judy took to painting in the 1980s, learning from her sister, Maggie Watson Napangardi. The two sisters were inseparable and worked together, painting for many years at Yuendumu for the Aboriginal-owned arts centre, Warlukurlangu Artists.

Like many Aboriginal people of the Central and Western Desert regions, Judy lived a traditional and nomadic life in her early years. She travelled many times to Mina Mina and Yingipurlangu, her ancestral country, on the border of the Tanami and Gibson Deserts. That country was the country that raised her: rich in bush tucker — wanakiji, the bush plum; yakajirri, the bush tomato; wardapi, the sand goanna — and Judy's family walked there and lived there for long stretches through her childhood. A tiny woman of formidable energy, she raised ten children in that hard country, and she and Maggie shared their working lives at Warlukurlangu until Judy's own style emerged fully her own.

At the centre of Judy's art stands the story of Mina Mina itself: in the Jukurrpa of this place, digging sticks rose up out of the ground, and the ancestral women gathered up these precious implements and set out on their great journey eastward — dancing as they travelled, creating new sites as they went. Mina Mina belongs to Napangardi and Napanangka women and Japangardi and Japanangka men, its rightful custodians, and Judy painted it with the authority of one born to the story.

Judy was known for her abstract rendering of women's Dreaming stories, incorporating aspects of ceremony and body paint designs and sacred sites such as Mina Mina. Her style is characterised by a dragged dotting style, creating sinuous lines that evoke the movements of ritual dance and ceremony by female ancestors. Her designs are also connected to a number of significant Warlpiri Dreaming stories such as Kanakurlangu (Digging Stick) and Ngalyipi (Snake Vine Dreaming), and her wider repertoire took in Karnta (Women), Yunkaranyi (Honey Ant), Jintiparnta (Native Truffle) and the hair-string belt of women's ceremony. While she stood at the forefront of the Warlpiri move toward more abstract renderings of Jukurrpa, her canvases always retained strong kurruwarri: the details that carry the sacredness of place and song. Her designs are known for their vitality - her vibrant, bold colour palettes, textured canvases indicate a sophisticated spiritual narrative and the depth of cultural seniority.

Judy Watson's paintings have been exhibited since 1990 and she has an impressive exhibition record that spans more than three decades: a solo Mina Mina exhibition at Hogarth Galleries in Sydney in 1999, shows in London and Seattle, the Warlukurlangu Collection at Parliament House in Canberra, and works entering collections across Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK and the United States. Judy is a highly collectable artist — among the few Aboriginal artists to see her work command six-figure prices within her own lifetime — represented in major national and state galleries including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, and the Aboriginal Art Museum in Utrecht.