Renelle Napanangka McCormack
Artworks
Biography
Renelle Napanangka McCormack was born in 1989 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuelamu community which is located approximately 300 km north west of Alice Springs on the Tanami Track which runs from the Stuart Highway to Halls Creek in Western Australia. Renelle has 3 brothers and 3 sisters and is the daughter of Lola Nampijinpa Brown, an established artist with Warlukurlangu Art Centre. Renelle went to Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding college in Alice Springs, finishing school at the end of Year 11. She is married and has one girl and one boy.
In 2010 Renelle began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community approximately 70 km west of Yuelamu. She began painting when she visited her mother, who now lives in Yuendumu. She paints her Father’s Pikilya Jukurrpa (Vaughan Springs Dreaming), Dreaming which relates directly to her land, its features and animals. She uses traditional iconography, while developing a contemporary individualistic style to depict her traditional Jukurrpa.
Renelle lives in Yuelamu with her husband but visits Yuendumu regularly to see her mother and paint at the Art Centre.