Kujjura Mampaly Nyirrila: Two Together
(continued)

PEGGY NAPANGARDI JONES is a Warlmampa/Warumungu woman who has received no western schooling and no formal art education. She started painting in 1996 when she joined the Julalikari CDEP Women’s Arts and Crafts group. Her output is constant, in a whole range of media – acrylics on canvas, lino cuts, etching, silkscreen printing and pottery.

Peggy’s mother, now passed away, was Warlmampa, from the country between Tennant Creek and Elliot. Her grandmother was Mudpurra, from north of there again. Her father was Warumungu. All family members of these generations have now passed away. Peggy’s mangaya (country dreaming held from father) is the country around Phillip Creek, north of Tennant Creek. She was born there, and all her life until she was a young woman was spent in the bush with her family. (When) I was a kid (I was living in the bush) – no school.

The family moved out from Phillip Creek and walked to Brunchilly Station where they stayed for some time. Peggy’s mother worked on Brunchilly Station as a servant around the homestead. Her father had gone away at that time, and the family unit was Peggy and her mother, her mother’s sister and her daughter (Peggy’s cousin sister) Phyllis (Nappangardi Kidd). Later they went to Banka Banka Station, at the time Mary Ward ‘the old lady’ was there. Phyllis explains that they went ‘back and forth’ between these places, Banka Banka and Brunchilly, living on bush tucker.

Then Peggy went with her mother and father, as a young woman to Alekerenge. She married there, a Warumungu man. Peggy and her husband came to Tennant creek around 1970 and Peggy’s three children Wayne, Jessica and Joshua were born in Tennant Creek while they were living in Village Camp.

This is Peggy’s fifth exhibition since she began making artworks last year. She has exhibited in conjunction with the Printabout travelling exhibition, in Great Lengths (fabrics from Central Australia) at Araluen Art Centre in Alice Springs, in the Central Australian Aboriginal Arts and Crafts Exhibition at Araluen, and in Wumpurrarnikayi ’96 in Tennant Creek.

ALISON ALDER first came to Tennant Creek from Sydney in 1994, to set up the CDEP Women’s Arts and Crafts Program. She was inspired by Julalikari’s work for social justice and equity for the whole community.

In 1984 Alison had joined the arts/screen printing studio Redback Graphix. Redback Graphix produced works from the perspective of the industrial labour force in Wollongong and Sydney and was the company that showed the way in visual communications with Aboriginal people.

Alison was an artist and co-director of Redback Graphix from 1986 – 1992. Although based in Sydney she travelled and worked extensively in other centres. From 1991 she travelled every year to the Northern Territory and the Kimberley, working with Aboriginal women on arts projects. She worked with Murinpatha women at Nganmarriyanga Community for four to ten weeks each year until 1996.

Alison Alder has shown work in fifteen exhibitions including two solo shows at aGOG gallery in Canberra. Her works are held in collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery of WA, Art Gallery of South Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, the Mitchell Library and the Australian War Memorial.