Biography

Glenda Nangala Briscoe

Glenda Nangala Briscoe was born in 1971 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She went to the local primary school before completing her secondary school education in Alice Springs. Glenda has lead an active life with family and friends and now has time to concentrate on her painting.

She began painting in 2015, with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu.  However, it wasn’t until 2020, when she retired, that she was able to commit herself to full time painting. She initially painted Malaiki Jukurrpa (Domestic Dog Dreaming) but now paints her Bush Tucker Jukurrpa (dreaming), passed down to her by her mother and all the mothers before them for millennia. Her paintings depict bush tucker, food collected by karnta (women) while out hunting. There is a wide variety of traditional food that Warlpiri people continue to gather and consume as a part of their diet. Many of the foods have their own Jukurrpa (dreaming) associated with them. To represent her mother and her grandmother’s country, Glenda creatively combines colour and patterns to blend traditional motifs with her own ideas of modern design.

Food and bush tucker are still regularly hunted and collected today. When Glenda is not painting she often goes out hunting with family and friends. They hunt for bush tucker, such as wanakiji (bush tomato), yarla (bush potato), janmarda (bush onion), ngarlajiyi (bush carrot), Lukarrara (fringe rush seed), and yuparli (bush banana).