Tilau Nangala was born in 1933 in the bush at what is now known as Haasts Bluff of Ngaliya parents. She grew up around Haasts Bluff speaking Warlpiri and Luritja. Her father’s country was the major Rain Dreaming site of Mikantji in Warlpiri territory and her mother and uncle’s country was around Haasts Bluff. Tilau never attended school – during her childhood the family still lived in the bush, supplementing their diet of bush tucker with supplies collected from Haasts Bluff ration depot. The family came across from Haasts Bluff to Papunya in the first days of the settlement. Tilau married Henry Jugadai Tjungurrayi. Her daughters from this marriage are Rosalie Jugadai Napaltjarri and Marjorie Nelson Napaltjarri. Two more daughters Mavis and Monica, and a son Mark, were born in Papunya. Tilau has been living at Papunya ever since. She often resides at Five Mile, an outstation of Papunya, with her daughter Rosalie and some of her many grandchildren although in recent years she prefers the widows’ camp near the Papunya police station. In the past, Tilau has been a carver of coolamons and clap sticks and a prodigious maker of ininti seed necklaces, but these days she mainly paints – although she has produced prints with Cicada Press. She likes to paint sitting with the Nampitjinpas and Nangalas – her ‘aunties’ and ‘nieces’ she said. She previously painted for Warumpi Arts mainly the Water stories of the major Rain Dreaming site of Mikantji. Tilau’s sister Yuwari Nangala (born 1929 in Haasts Bluff) married Henry Jugadai’s brother Andy Tjungurrayi who also painted for Warumpi Arts. Another older sister (mother’s sisters daughter) also known as Tilo Nangala and now deceased, painted for Warlukurlungu Artists at Yuendumu in the mid 1980’s. Tilau worked in the Papunya Hospital, in the old Papunya communal kitchen and more recently in the Papunya School, passing on her love of dancing to the children. Her deeply felt knowledge of country and ceremony empowers her bold expressive work. The great Water Dreaming site of Mikantji is nearly always its subject. She says her aunty, not her father, taught her her culture and stories but she developed her own ideas on how to paint it, starting with Warumpi Arts in the 1990’s and resuming with Papunya Tjupi Arts in 2006. She told me that she paints “so the children can watch me paint and learn, so I can pass on my Dreaming and stories to my grandchildren. Papunya Tjupi is my uncle (mother’s brother’s) country”.
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