Pansy Napangati
Warlpiri / Luritja people NT c.1947-2001
Hailstone Dreaming at Ilpilpi
Acrylic on canvas
213.5 x 350.5 cm
BCEC Art Collection
Pansy Napangati was born in the late 1940’s at Haasts Bluff, west of Alice Springs. Likely the first woman to begin painting in the Western Desert tradition, Pansy states that she started painting from the early days of the art movement in the 1970s. She learnt to paint by watching Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, both leading artists within the Papunya group, but worked independently in Alice Springs. Anmanarri Nungurrayi, a cousin of Pansy’s mother, taught her the Dreamings which inspire and provide the subject matter of her paintings.
In this painting the artist has taken the Hailstone Dreaming at Ilpilpi, west of Papunya for her subject. The small clumps of white dots are hailstones, and the small, curved lines among these are the ridges of sandhills glowing under the desert sun. Spinifex clumps are indicated by the star-like shapes. Wavy lines represent water flowing from the spring at Ilpilpi, the central concentric circle.