Biography

Nikita Nungarrayi Morris was born in 1993 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Nyirripi, a remote Aboriginal community 450 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She was born to Nancy Napurrurla Dickson and Hamilton Japaljarri Morris. Nikita has three sisters and one brother. Her grandparents are Valerie Napurrurla and Mosquito Jungarrayi Morris, both well-known artists working with Warlukurlangu Art Centre. Nikita attended the local Nyirripi Primary School but completed her schooling in Melbourne where she attended Warowa Aboriginal College. Worawa Aboriginal College provides a holistic education and boarding experience for young Aboriginal women in the middle years of Schooling (Years 7-10). She continues her studies through the Batchelor Institute, Indigenous Tertiary Education. She also works at the local shop in Nyirripi.

Nikita enjoyed painting at school and since 2014 has been painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community, 150 kms east of Nyirripi. She paints her Grandfather’s country Jukurrpa, Yarungkanyi (Mt Doreen). These dreamings are related directly to the land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. They have been passed down through the generations for at least fifty millennia.

When Nikita is not working, studying or painting she loves to go hunting, especially hunting for goanna.

15/11/24- Nikita paints both Janganpa Jukurrpa (brush tail possum Dreaming)- Mawurrji (paintings with tracks) and Yarungkanyi Jukurrpa (Mt Doreen Dreaming) (paintings without tracks.