Background
Norah Nelson was born at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory, north-west of Alice Springs on 26 October 1956.
Norah Nelson was born at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory, north-west of Alice Springs on 26 October 1956.
Her paintings and pottery are held in the collection of the. "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.
Thus "Norah Nelson" is the element of the artist"s name that is specifically hers. Background 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.
By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally. 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.
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. As of 2004 she was living in Yuendumu and painted for the Indigenous art centre there, Warlukurlangu ists. Western Desert artists such as Norah will frequently paint particular "dreamings", or stories, for which they have personal responsibility or rights, and in Norah"s case these have included Karntjarra (Two Women), Ngaru (bush plum) Ngarlkirdi (witchetty grub) and Pangkurlangu (Giant) dreamings.
One of this series was chosen as the design for a mosaic at the new court complex for the, and reviewed for Monthly by Patrick Hutchings.
Galleries in both Australia and elsewhere have exhibited works by Norah, including Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in Melbourne, the Lowe Museum at the University of Miami in the United States, and the.