Debbie Napaltjarri Brown

Community: Yuendumu

DOB: 19 July 1985

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Debbie is renowned for her paintings depicting the sand hills (tali) of Nyirripi, her Grandfather’s Jukurrpa (Dreaming’s). The sand hills feature in the sacred, ancient stories of her land, its features, plants and animals shared with Debbie by her Mother, Joy Nangala Brown, her Grandmother, Margaret Napangardi Brown, and her Grandfather, Pegleg Tjampitjinpa, all artists of renown.

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Debbie is also celebrated for her beautiful paintings depicting Yumari Jukurrpa, a Dreaming that was passed on to Debbie by her mother. Yumari is a collection of rocks west of Kintore in the Gibson Desert and is the site of a forbidden union between a Japaljarri man and a Nangala woman. In contemporary Warlpiri paintings, traditional iconography is used to represent important sites and other significant features of the landscape, in which concentric circles often represent rock holes (Warnirri).