Dorothy Napangardi: Dorothy Napangardi

Australian artist Dorothy Napangardi conveys her sense of place with points of paint. Every point is a marker and each marks a path. The results are aesthetically enticing — intricate, rhythmic, undulating skeins. However, the work transcends its visual sensuality to communicate ideas of travel, trade, tradition and spirituality. ‘Dreamings,’ the oral traditions upon which these paintings are based, are mythical stories that acknowledge a 40,000 year-old relationship with the land. It is in this context that Napangardi’s “landscapes” find meaning beyond their formal elegance. In her catalogue essay for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney’s 2002-2003 survey exhibition, “Dancing Up Country: The Art of Dorothy Napangardi,” Christine Nicholls contextualizes the work and ‘Dreamings,’ noting,

“It needs to be remembered that Central and Western Desert art works, and the narratives in which they are embedded, comprise high levels of information about the environment, site-specific ‘deep ecology,’ interactions between species, as well as offering templates for human interactions and ethical and moral guidance. The artwork itself acts as a kind of visual shorthand representing these Dreaming narratives, which encrypt Indigenous social memory, or what could be described as ‘cultural DNA.’ ”

Within Napangardi’s itinerant borders, dots of paint create a complex visual corollary to a cultural landscape. Outside these borders, where these paintings meet notions of “the contemporary,” there exist a rich variety of references and interpretations.

Dorothy Napangardi is exhibited in cooperation with Gallery Gondwana, Sydney.