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JUDY WATSON NAPANGARDI (CIRCA 1935 - )
Women's Dreaming, 1995
synthetic polymer paint on linen
193 x 367 cm

Provenance: Kimberley Art Private Collection, Vic Sold with original gallery documentation and a folio of photographs of the artist creating the work In this, the most ambitious painting of her career, Judy Watson depicts the Snake Vine, Ngalyipi, sacred to Napangardi and Napanangka women. Born at Mt Doreen Station, Judy Watson has made many trips back to Mina Mina and Yingipurlangu, her ancestral country on the border of the Tanami and Gibson Deserts, with her family. She was taught to paint by her elder sister Maggie Napangardi Watson and painted alongside her at Warlurkurlangu artists for a number of years, developing her own unique style. Though a tiny woman, Judy gave birth to ten children and is a woman of a prodigious energy that is transmitted in her vibrant paintings through a dynamic use of colour and her energetic dragged dotting style. The style has been said to mimic the movement of women as they dance, and in particular, the movement of the Kantakulangu ancestors who danced through Mina Mina on their epic journey in the Dreamtime. The Central motif is Ngalyipi (Tinospora smilacina) or Snake Vine, which grows along the trunks and boughs of the Desert Oak. The vine is used to strap coolamons to the body when laden with bush tucker, as a tourniquet; and for a number of other uses as well as its role in important women's ceremonies. Ref. Christine Nicholls, "The Three Napangardi's, To the memory of Maggie Napangardi Watson' in Ryan,J; (ed.) Colour Power-Aboriginal Art Post 1984 in the Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 2004, pp123-125