Artist Profile

Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri

Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri born around 1948 at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory. She is a Warlpiri speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert regoin. Her mother was Angoona Nangala and her father Jim Tjungurrayi.

Ngoia attended school at Papunya and worked at the mission there. She married Jack Tjampitjinpa, a very important Papunya artist (deceased) and they moved to Kintore, and later to Mount Liebig. Ngoia Pollard and Jack Tjamptjinpa had five children. Jack died in 1988.

Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri commenced painting in 1997. She paints her father's country, which is a sacred Warlpiri territory associated with narratives to the 'water snake'. The oval shapes in her paintings are iconographic representation of the swamps and lakes near Nyrripi (Talarada) North West of Mount Liebig in Northern Territory where Ngoia lives. Ngoia depicts the wet and dry characteristics of the country. This region is changed with the spiritual presence of the 'water snake' which lives beneath the surface. This is the area where her father hunted in the past.

Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri has a special custodianship responsibility for this country.

AWARDS:
Ngoia has won many important awards:
• 2002, selected for the prestigious Northern Territory Art Award, Telstra award
• 2003, selected for the Northern Territory Art Award, Telstra award
• 2004, First Prize, Advocate Central Australian Award
• 2006, First Prize, National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards

COLLECTIONS:
Her works are held in major private and public collections, including
• National Gallery of Australia
• Thomas Vroom collection on loan to the Aboriginal Art Museum
• Utrecht the Nederlands
• National Australian Art Gallery, Canberra National
• Artbank Sydney
• Private and cooperate collections in Australia, Denmark and Germany

   Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri

You are welcome to visit the art gallery to see Ngoia Pollard Napaltjarri and other aboriginal artists artwork on Linen/Canvas, Coolamon, Didgeridoo, Boomerang and Pottery at: KARLANGU ABORIGINAL ART CENTRE, 47 York Street, Sydney, New South Wales, 2000, Australia