Biography

Pauline Napangardi Gallagher was born in 1952 in Yuendumu. She went to the local school in Yuendumu and soon after married her promised husband who is now deceased. Pauline moved to Nyirripi in 1983 and lived there to 2023. She had five children, three sons and two daughters; she also had fifteen grandchildren. Some of her family live in Nyirripi and the rest of her family live in Yuendumu, Kintore and Papunya, Aboriginal communities in the NT of Australia. Pauline’s country is Pikilyi (Vaughan Springs), a sacred water hole and located near Mount Doreen Station west of Yuendumu and approximately 350 km north-west of Alice Springs. Pauline painted since 2006 with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in NT of Australia. She painted her father’s stories – Pikilyi Jukurrpa (Pikilyi Dreaming) and Mina Mina Jukurrpa (Mina Mina Dreaming), Dreamings that relate to her land, its features and animals. They have been passed down to her by her parents and their parents before them for millennia. She painted through this art centre when she visited Yuendumu or when canvas, paint and brushes were dropped off in Nyirripi for artist by Warlukurlangu, as they have done since 2005. Pauline loved colour and used an unrestricted palette to develop a modern interpretation of her traditional Aboriginal culture.