Jukuja Dolly Snell

Jukuja Dolly Snell (born c. 1933 – 30 December 2015) was an artist from Western Australia, who won the 2015 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award.

Biography Snell was born in 1933, near a jila called Kurtal. Her father was Lawalawa, the custodian of Kurtal. A painting by Ngarralja Tommy May (2020 winner of the Telstra Award ) shows Lawalawa in death, left at a waterhole called Jitirr by his family as he was too weak to travel further. In 2007, Snell painted Jitirr.

After the death of her father, she and her mother moved around the region, visiting places which included Balgo, Warnku, Louisa Downs Station, Bohemia Downs Station and Christmas Creek Station. They spoke the Wangkatjungka language. The movement out of the desert by many became known as the Walmajarri diaspora. Whilst she was working at the stations with her mother, she met her husband Nyirlpirr Spider Snell. They had two children, Henry and Dorothy, as well as adopting the artist Lisa Uhl. as a result of Australian governmental investment in Aboriginal education. She was one of the founding members of Karrayili Adult Education Centre and later Mangkaja Arts Resource Agency. In 1993, her work was part of 'Images of Power: Aboriginal Art of the Kimberley' at the National Gallery of Victoria. In 2007, she was part of an international group show in 2009 organised by Ildiko Kovacs, entitled 'Sitting Down with Jukuja and Wakarta'. The artists worked alongside each other for three weeks, learning before presenting their work together. Her first solo show was in Darwin in 2014 at the Outstation Gallery, and was called 'Kurtal: New Work by Dolly Snell'.

Telstra Award In 2015, Snell was awarded the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award for her painting Kurtal, which depicts the place she was born. It took three weeks to paint.

Themes Snell's paintings revolve around themes close to the country around Kurtal. They include: the jila (waterhole), jilji (sandhills) and surrounding country in the Great Sandy Desert. National Museum of Australia: Jitirr; National Gallery of Victoria: Jitirr; Untitled; Kalpartujarra. Artbank, Sydney: various. Flinders University Museum of Art