Acknowledged as one of the great innovators of the Warlpiri art movement from Lajamanu, Lorna Napurrula Fencer was both a fierce and gentle custodian of her culture. She painted the great Napurrula-Nakamarra creation stories from her brother’s custodial site at Yurmurrpa. These ceremonial stories re-enact the myths of the Ancestors who dug out the first yarla, or the bush potato, from the earth around the underground water source at Yurmurrpa.

Embedded in the swirling shapes of the bush potato leaves are the “U” shapes of the Napurrula and Nakamarra women, who remain the custodians and the beneficiaries of their great Ancestors’ achievements. The travels of Napurrula and Nakamarrra kinship or skin groups are the inspiration for Lorna Fencer Napurrula’s work, and she was a custodian of the Dreamings associated with bush potato (yarla), caterpillar (luju), bush onion, yam, bush tomato, bush plum, many different seeds, and (importantly) water.

Lorna Napurrula Fencer, a senior Warlpiri artist born at Yartulu Yartulu, was the custodian of the inherited lands of Yumurrpa in the Tanami Desert. In 1949, many Warlpiri people, including Lorna Napurrula Fencer, were forcibly relocated by the government from the Yuendumu community to a settlement at Lajamanu, 250 miles north, in the country of the Gurindji people. Napurrula successfully maintained and strengthened her cultural commitment through ceremonial practices and art, ultimately asserting her position as a prominent elder figure in the community. She began her painting in the mid-1980s.

 

Lorna Napurrula Fencer at her best is recognised as an artist who was a master of colour, carefully considering the impact as she laid down the paint on the canvas. Her large epic canvases created in the eighth decade of her life were final and compelling statements about the power of the great Warlpiri stories that she painted for over twenty years.

 

Lorna’s mother’s country was Yumurrpa,  where the Yarla (Yam or Big Bush Potato) Dreaming track begins its journey north toward Lajamanu. Her father’s country was Wapurtali, home of the little bush potato. Before transitioning to canvas in the mid-1980s, Lorna Napurrula Fencer painted on traditional women’s coolamons and digging sticks.

 

Lorna Napurrula Fencer is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, various state galleries and major private collections. In 2011, a major touring survey exhibition titled ‘Yulyurlu – Lorna Napurrula Fencer’ travelled to institutional galleries around Australia.

In 2007, Napurrula was named one of Australia’s 50 most collectable artists by the Australian Art Collector magazine.

 

Collections

Hank Ebes Collection, Melbourne
Aboriginal Art Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Artbank, Sydney
Australian Heritage Commission Collection, Canberra
Gantner Myer Collection of Aboriginal Art
Gold Coast City Art Gallery, Gold Coast
Holmes à Court Collection, Perth

Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth
Laverty Collection, Sydney
 Leeuwin Estate, Perth
Margaret Carnegie Collection
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin
Museum of Victoria, Melbourne
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Shepparton Art Museum, Shepparton VIC
Fondation Burkhardt-Felder Arts et Culture, Môtiers, Switzerland

 

Awards

2007 Top 50 Collectable Artists, Australian Art Collector Magazine
2004 21st NATSIAA, Darwin – Finalist
2000 17th NATSIAA, Darwin – Finalist
1998 John McCaughey Memorial Art Prize, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1997 Gold Coast City Art Award, Conrad Jupiters Casino, Gold Coast