About
Makinti Napanangka (c. 1930–2011) was born at Mangarri, near the Kintore community, on the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Makinti started painting when she was already well past middle age. Her first painting was made in the Haasts Bluff community, in 1994. She later moved to Kintore, and her style transformed from the tight, brightly colored roundels in her early work to the long, quivering arcs by the early 2000s. In 1999, Makinti underwent a cataract operation, which led to the evolution of the thick, expressive lines and more vivid hues that characterize her mature painting style.
Makinti’s paintings commemorate Pintupi women’s performative and ritual traditions depicting ceremonies and dances in nymparra (hand-spun string skirts made from human hair). Expressive lines of color evoke the energetic movements of the hair-string skirt dances and the fleeting desert mirages that glaze the hot earth where they are performed.
Makinti was selected for the landmark Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2000. In 2011 her work was recognized when she was posthumously named a Member of the Order of Australia for her service to the arts and women painters of the Western Desert art practice.
