Biography

Marissa Nangala was born in 1988 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community located 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. Born into a well-represented artistic Warlpiri family, Marissa listened and watched her grandmother paint and recount her stories. Marissa went to the local school in Yuendumu and then to Alice Springs where she completed her secondary school education at Yirara College, a boarding school for Indigenous students.

Marissa Nangala has been painting consistently with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, since early 2022. She paints Wanakiji Jukurrpa (Bush Tomato Dreaming), and Pirlarla Jukurrpa (Dogwood Tree Bean Dreaming); 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 parents and grandparents and their parents before them for millennia.

Initially Marissa used traditional iconography but over time she has developed an individualistic style using (i) an unrestricted or a monochromatic palette and (ii) a creative combination to blend traditional motifs with her own ideas of modern design.