Biography

Gweneth Napurrurla Nelson was born in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. Her parents are Doris Napaljarri Jurrah and Terry Jakamarra Nelson, both artists who paint with Warlukurlangu Artists. Gweneth attended the local school in Yuendumu and completed her studies at Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs. When she completed her studies she returned to Yuendumu, where she has lived ever since. Gweneth has been painting intermittently with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 2002. She paints her father’s and mother’s Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings which relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories were passed down to her by her father and mother and her grandparents and their parents before them for millennia. She learnt to paint first at school and then by watching all the family paint. She loves colour and painting patterns and uses an unrestricted palette to depict her traditional iconography, at the same time developing a modern individualist style, using pattern and design in a variety of contexts. When Gweneth is not painting she likes to go hunting with her family.