Biography

“I like my country, it is important.” Jacob Jungarrayi Spencer was born in 1964, in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in NT of Australia. When he was young he lived in Yuendumu and attended the local school before going to Alice Springs where he completed his schooling at Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding school. He continued his education training as a bookkeeper with the Yuendumu Council. In 1985 he moved to Nyirripi where he still lives and works with the Council. Both of Jacob’s parents have passed away, but he is the adopted son of another highly successful artist from Yuendumu, Paddy Japaljarri Stewart. He has two sisters, Rahab and Ruth and two brothers, Edgar and Lloyd. Jacob is married to Joy Nangala Brown. They have two children, a daughter and son and grandchildren. His daughter Debbie Napaljarri Brown also paints with Warlukurlangu Artists. Jacob began working with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since 1997. He paints his father’s and his grandfather’s Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings that stretch back at least fifty millennia. He particularly likes to paint Wardapi Jukurrpa (Goanna Dreaming) from his father’s side and also because the goanna is his totem. When Jacob is not painting or working he likes sport and hunting for bush tucker.