Makinti Napanangka

Makinti Napanangka AM ( 1930 – 9 January 2011 ) referred to posthumously as Kumentje, was a Pintupi-speaking Indigenous Australian artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She lived in the communities of Haasts Bluff, Papunya, and later at Kintore, about north-east of the Lake MacDonald region where she was born, on the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Makinti died in 2011 in Alice Springs and she was posthumously awarded an AM later that year.

Makinti Napanangka began painting Contemporary Indigenous Australian art at Kintore in the mid-1990s, encouraged by a community art project. Interest in her work developed quickly, and she is now represented in most significant Australian public art galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia. A finalist in the 2003 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, Makinti won the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2008. Her work was shown in the major indigenous art exhibition Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Working in synthetic polymer on linen or canvas, Makinti's paintings primarily take as their subjects a rockhole site, Lupul, and an indigenous story (or "dreaming") about two sisters, known as Kungka Kutjarra. She was a member of the Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative, but her work has been described as more spontaneous than that of her fellow Papunya Tula artists.

Personal life alt=Daytime landscape photo, showing a range of hills with the nearest rising to a rocky red peak, below a blue sky with a few white strings of cloud, and above the tops of eucalyptus trees. Makinti Napanangka's year of birth is uncertain, but several sources indicate she was born around 1930, although other sources indicate she may have been born as early as 1922 or as late as 1932 at a location described by some sources as Lupul rockhole which straddles the border between Western Australia and the Northern Territory, south-west of Kintore, and about west of Alice Springs.

Makinti was a member of the Pintupi group of indigenous people, Thus her personal name was "Makinti". The uncertainty around Makinti's date and place of birth arises from the fact that Indigenous Australians often estimate dates of birth by comparison with other events, especially for people born before contact with European Australians. They may also cite the place of birth as being where the mother first felt the foetus move, rather than where the birth took place.

Makinti's first contact with white people was seeing them riding camels, when she was living at Lupul. Kumentje was described as "a charmer and an irascible character", with an infectious smile. In 1992, the Ikuntji Women's Centre was opened at Haasts Bluff and a new painting movement quickly developed, supported by founding art coordinator Marina Strocchi, who assisted in artists' development at both Haasts Bluff and Kintore. It was through this initiative that Kumentje began painting in 1994 for the Minyma Tjukurrpa (Kintore/Haasts Bluff Project) and by 1997 her work was being acquired by major collecting institutions. She was one of the "Kintore ladies" and was referred to as "number one" by her fellow artists, of whom she was considered a leader. She painted with the Papunya Tula Artists Cooperative, in which she was a shareholder, from 1996, alongside artist such as Ningura Napurrula.

alt=an acrylic painting on linen, of lines and circles painted in oranges, yellows and whites, and some blue.

The only break in her career was in 1999, when she underwent a cataract operation,

Makinti's works were selected to hang in five consecutive National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) exhibitions, beginning in 1997. an assessment repeated by that magazine in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Also in 2003, she was among the finalists for the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award. but her age and circumstances prevented her from accepting it in person. In 2009, she was again a finalist in the NATSIAA, with an untitled painting and was also a finalist in the Togart Contemporary Art Award the same year. In 2011 she was a finalist in the 36th Alice Art Prize and in 2011 she was posthumously awarded the Member of the Order of Australia, for "service to the arts as a contemporary Indigenous artist, to women painters of the Western Desert Art movement, and to the community of the Northern Territory".

Most of Australia's public collections hold one or more works by Makinti, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. She participated in some major group exhibitions, such as Papunya Tula: Genesis and Genius at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Colour Power at the National Gallery of Victoria, as well as having had a small number of solo exhibitions at private galleries, including the gallery of influential art dealer Gabrielle Pizzi. The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra has in its collection a photographic portrait of Kumentje, by Malaysian-born Australian artist Hari Ho. Her work was selected for inclusion in the 2012 Sydney Biennale.

Style of painting Makinti's works, including her Clemenger Award and NATSIAA paintings, are created with synthetic polymer on linen or canvas.

Many paintings by artists of the Western Desert relate to water, while the story (or "dreaming") most frequently portrayed by Western Desert women is Kungka Kutjarra, or Two Women, concerning the travel of two sisters. Makinti's works reflect those themes, and are particularly associated with a rockhole site, Lupul, and with Kungka Kutjarra. Her untitled painting in the Genesis and Genius exhibition was based on Kungka Kutjarra, Throughout this evolution, her colour palette has consistently included a subtle range of yellows and pinks, through to oranges and whites.

Reviewing the same exhibition, Robert Nelson described Makinti's work as "sensual and chromatically effusive painting". The work of the "Kintore ladies" has created "some of the most richly textured surfaces in the history of the (Papunya Tula) company"; Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory National Gallery of Victoria Queensland Art Gallery Macquarie Bank collection

Solo exhibitions and awards

1997 – 14th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award 2001 – finalist, 18th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award 2007 – finalist, 24th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award 2008 – winner, 25th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award