Betty Muffler

Betty Muffler is an Aboriginal Australian artist and ngangkari (healer). She is a senior artist at Iwantja Arts, in Indulkana in Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY Lands), South Australia, known for a series of works on large linen canvases called Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country).

Early life Muffler was born near Watarru, South Australia, in 1944, of the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara peoples. She grew up at the Ernabella Mission in Pukatja in the aftermath of the British nuclear tests at Maralinga and Operation Totem at Emu Field in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Seeing the deaths and dislocation caused by the tests has inspired much of her artwork, She works in several mediums, notably painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture.

Nici Cumpston, curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and artistic director of the Tarnanthi exhibitions at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in Adelaide, regards Muffler's "meteoric rise" as well-deserved, and included Muffler's work in the 2020 Open Hands exhibition, which was dedicated to the work of senior women artists in remote communities. in the form of specially-commissioned work, another iteration of Ngangkaṟi Ngura (Healing Country). The work featured on Vogue was hung in the Know My Name exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, 2020: Finalist, Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Collections and exhibitions Australian War Memorial, Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country) (2017)

Personal life Muffler married a man from Iwantja, and has two sons and a daughter there as well as family in Coober Pedy, and many grandchildren.