Biography

Azaria Nampijinpa Robertson was born in 1988 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs. Azaria grew up in Yuendumu where she went to school. She is married to Francis Japangardi Forest. They have two children, one boy and one girl. Azaria has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 2003. She paints her Grandmother’s Jukurrpa, Dreaming depicting Mina Mina, country far west of Yuendumu. Azaria uses traditional designs and icons in her artwork denoting place, and describing the journey of a group of women gathering food and uses an unrestricted palette to develop a modern interpretation of her traditional culture. She likes to paint through the art centre as often as she is able to while caring for her two children. She currently works with the Mount Theo Sniffer Program, an aboriginal incentive of tribal elders, started in 1994 with no outside resources and with the full support of the community which turned out to be the most successful strategy for dealing with the problem of petrol sniffing.