Also known as: Jennifer Nginyaka Mitchell
Born: c.1955 | Kala Tjutji, near Irruntju (Wingellina), Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Western Australia
Language: Ngaanyatjarra
Dreamings: Tjukurpa (Pleiades & Orion constellations), Minyma Kutjara (Two Sisters), Kungkarrangkalpa (Seven Sisters), Country
Jennifer was born at Kala Tjutji, a place of deep cultural weight, home to both the Emu Dreaming and the Wati Kutjara Dreaming, which tells of two lizard men who descended from the mountains and walked the length of the Western Desert. She carries that country in everything she makes.
As a young child, Jennifer travelled across the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Lands with her family. In the 1950s, they were camped near Maralinga during British atomic weapons testing. Jennifer has spoken of hiding in wiltja (bush shelters) at Watinuma, emerging only at night when the smoke had gone, her eyes still stinging from the fallout. Her grandfather became ill from the radiation and did not survive. A government official helped ensure the family was moved over the range from the test site but the damage had been done, and the memory has never left her.
When her mother, the celebrated artist Eileen Tjayanka Woods, passed away, Jennifer became senior custodian of Kuru Ala, the sacred Seven Sisters site a responsibility she carries with quiet authority and deep respect.
Jennifer began making tjanpi (grass) baskets in 1995 and remains an accomplished sculptor, working in wool and grass to create wonderfully animated figures dogs, people, characters full of personality and life. In 2008 she turned to acrylic painting and has painted ever since.
Her contribution to Australian cultural life extends well beyond the canvas. In 2015, Jennifer was one of fourteen Tjanpi Desert Weavers artists who travelled to Kuru Ala, her own sacred custodial site, to create a major sculptural work commissioned by the National Museum of Australia for the landmark exhibition Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters. Working alongside her mother Eileen Tjayanka Woods and fellow Papulankutja artists, the group wove the Seven Sisters into life from tjanpi grass, wool and branch. That work went on to tour internationally, including to the Humboldt Forum in Berlin in 2022 carrying Ngaanyatjarra story to audiences across the world. Jennifer also plays an active role in her community as an organiser of the annual Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women's Council Law and Culture camp, helping to keep cultural knowledge alive for the next generation.
She paints at Papulankutja (Blackstone) with Papulankutja Artists, one of the most respected community-controlled art centres in the Western Desert, and regularly makes the journey to Alice Springs to spend time with family always returning to paint.
Her paintings are made from an aerial perspective, as though looking down from the very stars she maps. Her technique is distinctive: she begins by dabbing colour with a brush to build the landscape, then works back over the surface with a fine dotting tool laying thousands of delicate marks that evoke the shimmer of spinifex over ancient rock. The result is something luminous and deeply textured, a surface that rewards close looking. Collectors frequently describe her palette as unusually rich and her touch as entirely her own.
Jennifer's work has been acquired by numerous national collections, and her Minyma Kutjara (Two Sisters) Dreaming holds a permanent place in the Parliament of Western Australia.
Each of the Jennifer Nginana Mitchell works held by Altyerre was purchased directly from Jennifer. All come with a full Certificate of Authenticity.
