Biddy Rockman Napaljarri

Biddy Rockman Napaljarri (born c. 1940) is a Walpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. She has been painting since 1986, and her work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

Biddy Rockman Napaljarri
Born1940 (1940)
Tanami Downs, Northern Territory
NationalityAustralian
Known forPainting

Life

Biddy Rockman Napaljarri is a Walpiri-speaking Indigenous artist from the Western Desert region.[1] Biddy Rockman Napaljarri should not be confused with artist Biddy Napaljarri White (born 1952).[2]

'Napaljarri' (in Warlpiri) or 'Napaltjarri' (in Western Desert dialects) is a skin name, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans.[3][4] Thus 'Biddy Rockman' is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers.

Biddy was born circa 1940[1] in the area of Mongrel Downs station in Western Australia,[5] The ambiguity around the year of birth is in part because Indigenous Australians operate using a different conception of time, often estimating dates through comparisons with the occurrence of other events.[6] Mongrel Downs station was renamed Tanami Downs at the time of it being returned to Indigenous ownership in the 1990s. The area lies in the north-west of the Northern Territory, on the Western Australian border.[7]

Biddy was one of six children of Milkila Jungarayi, and her siblings include artists Mona Rockman Napaljarri and Peggy Rockman Napaljarri.[8] Biddy Rockman is one of the traditional owners recognised in the Tanami Downs land claim, under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976.[8] By 2004 she was living in Katherine, Northern Territory.[1]

Art

Background

Contemporary Indigenous art of the western desert began when Indigenous men at Papunya began painting in 1971, assisted by teacher Geoffrey Bardon.[9] Their work, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across Indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983.[10] By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally.[11] The first artists, including all of the founders of the Papunya Tula artists' company, had been men, and there was resistance amongst the Pintupi men of central Australia to women painting.[12] However, there was also a desire amongst many of the women to participate, and in the 1990s large numbers of them began to create paintings. In the western desert communities such as Kintore, Yuendumu, Balgo, and on the outstations, people were beginning to create art works expressly for exhibition and sale.[11]

Career

Biddy Rockman began painting at Lajamanu, Northern Territory, in the central desert, west of Tennant Creek, in 1986.[1] Western Desert artists such as Biddy will frequently paint particular 'dreamings', or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights.[13] Johnson's biographical survey of artists in 1994 identified her country as Jarlawangu, and that she painted Ngatijirri (budgerigar) and Warna dreamings,[14] stories that belong to Napaljarri and Nungarrayi women.[1]

Works by Biddy Rockman are held by major institutions, including the National Gallery of Victoria.[5] They are also represented in major private collections, such as Nangara (also known as the Ebes Collection).[15]

Collections
gollark: Idea: game where you have to pick a number as close as possible to 80% of the average.
gollark: All my builds are basically just large excavated-out caves or vast cuboids.
gollark: Now to deploy the bee-becoming field against you instead.
gollark: Done.
gollark: It's just missing the lasers.

References
  1. Birnberg, Margo; Janusz Kreczmanski (2004). Aboriginal Artist Dictionary of Biographies: Australian Western, Central Desert and Kimberley Region. Marleston, South Australia: J.B. Publishing. p. 202. ISBN 1-876622-47-4.
  2. "Biddy Napaljarri White". auskadi gallery – 'arte de ahi'. 2007. Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
  3. "Kinship and skin names". People and culture. Central Land Council. Archived from the original on 24 October 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2009.
  4. De Brabander, Dallas (1994). "Sections". In David Horton (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia. 2. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. p. 977. ISBN 978-0-85575-234-7.
  5. "Biddy Napaljarri Rockman". Dictionary of Australian Artists Online. 2007. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
  6. Birnberg, Margo; Janusz Kreczmanski (2004). Aboriginal Artist Dictionary of Biographies: Australian Western, Central Desert and Kimberley Region. Marleston, South Australia: J.B. Publishing. pp. 10–12. ISBN 1-876622-47-4.
  7. Central Land Council (March 1993). ""Mongrel" Station has New Future: Tanami Downs Land Claim". Land Rights News. 2 (23). Archived from the original on 27 October 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2010.
  8. Olney, Justice (30 March 1992). Tanami Downs Land Claim: Findings, Recommendation (PDF). Reports of the Aboriginal Land Commissioner. Report No. 42. Melbourne: Aboriginal Land Commissioner. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 March 2011.
  9. Bardon, Geoffrey; James Bardon (2006). Papunya – A place made after the story: The beginnings of the Western Desert painting movement. University of Melbourne: Miegunyah Press.
  10. Dussart, Francoise (2006). "Canvassing identities: reflecting on the acrylic art movement in an Australian Aboriginal settlement". Aboriginal History. 30: 156–168.
  11. Morphy, Howard (1999). Aboriginal Art. London: Phaidon. pp. 261–316.
  12. Strocchi, Marina (2006). "Minyma Tjukurrpa: Kintore / Haasts Bluff Canvas Project: Dancing women to famous painters". Artlink. 26 (4).
  13. Johnson, Vivien (1994). "Introduction". Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary. Roseville East, NSW: Craftsman House. pp. 7–12.
  14. Johnson, Vivien (1994). Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert: A Biographical Dictionary. Roseville East, NSW: Craftsman House. p. 174.
  15. "The artists". Nangara: the Australian Aboriginal art exhibition. Archived from the original on 19 July 2008. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
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