Biography

Sebastian Jupurrurla Wilson was born in 1990 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 290 km north-west of Alice Springs. Sebastian attended the local school in Yuendumu. In 2008 he married Athena Nangala Granites who also paints for Warlukurlangu Artists. They live and work in Yuendumu and have one son, ‘Little Henry Peterson Wilson’. His mother and siblings ( he has one brother and four sisters) live in Alice Springs.

Sebastian has been painting for Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre in Yuendumu, since 2010. He married into a long time artist family and is keen to learn as much as he can about painting and about his Jukurrpa stories. He also works at the Warlukurlangu art centre, helping with mixing paint and stretching canvases. He paints his father’s Jukurrpa stories, Dreamings which relate directly to his land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories were passed down to him by his father and his father’s father before him for millennia. Sebastian uses traditional designs and icons with an unrestricted palette to develop a modern interpretation of his traditional culture.

When he is not working or painting he likes to go hunting with his ‘big brother’ and his cousins.