Judy Napangardi Martin

Judy Napangardi Martin was born about 1940 in Warlpiri country near Yuendumu in the Tanami Desert. She is the eldest daughter of famous painter Lorna Napurrula Fencer, and is half sister to Judy Napangardi Watson. Judy Napangardi Martin began her painting during the 1980s and 1990s at Lajamanu Community, located between Yuendumu and Wave Hill in the Northern Territory.

Judy Napangardi Martin paints the significant Women’s Dreaming stories located around Yuendumu. These sites include Mina Mina and Yurmurrpa, her mother’s Dreaming site.

Judy Napangardi Martin uses bold line structure and contained areas of rich colour to map out her Dreaming stories. Her most recent paintings mark a distinctive step forward by the artist. She is re-affirming her ceremonial rights and obligations, as part of the Napangardi skin group, to her traditional sites in the Tanami Desert. These paintings are an artist’s statement of celebration, of renewal and of inheritance.
Subject & Themes
Woman, rock wallaby
Collections
Art Gallery of South Australia.
Group Exhibitions
1989
Lajamanu Painters,Dreamtime Gallery,Perth.
Lamanu Dreamings, TAFE Darwin, N.T.
Lajamanu Paintings,Vincent Gallery,Adelaide
Lajamanu paintings, Lindsay Street Gallery,Darwin,NT.
Peintures du desert Australien,Douarmenez France.
Aboriginal Art,Australian Embassy,Washington,USA
Lajamanu Dreamings 2, TAFE College, Darwin N.T.

1991
Lajamanu-Warlpiri Artsist from Lajamanu, Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Sydney.
Yapa, Pientres Aborigines de Balgo et Lajamanu, Baudoin Lebon Gallery, Paris France.
Ngurra Mala,les lieux du reve,Ecole des beaux-arts,Grenoble,France

1998
Warnayaka Warliri,Karen Brown Gallery,Darwin.
Aboriginal Olympic Exhibition, Phillip Morris, Lausanne

2000
Lajamanu Womens Artists,Cooee Aboriginal Art,Sydney.
Artists of Lajamanu,Japaingka Gallery,Perth, Western Australia.
Artists of Lajamanu, Tandanya Cultural Insitute, Adelaide, South Australia.

2003
Yilpinji, Love, Magic and Ceremony, Outback Gallery, Darling Harbour. Sydney. Australia.
Yilpinji, Love, Magic and Ceremony, Darwin Entertainment Centre Gallery, Darwin, Northern Territory.
Yilpinji, Love, Magic and Ceremony, Alcheringa Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Bibliography
Johnson, V. 1994, Dictionary of Western desert Artists,Craftsman House.
Glowczewski,B. 1991, yapa,peintres Aborigenes de Balgo et Lajamanu,Lebon Gallery,Paris.
Art Gallery of SA, 1996, Dreamings of the Desert.