Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri
Daisy Jugadai Napaltjarri (c. 1955–2008) was a Pintupi-Luritja-speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region, and sister of artist Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri. Daisy Jugadai lived and painted at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory. There she played a significant role in the establishment of Ikuntji Women's Centre, where many artists of the region have worked. Influenced by the Hermannsburg School, Jugadai's paintings reflect her Tjuukurrpa, the complex spiritual knowledge and relationships between her and her landscape. The paintings also reflect fine observation of the structures of the vegetation and environment. Jugadai's works were selected for exhibition at the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards five times between 1993 and 2001, and she was a section winner in 2000. Her paintings are held in major collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Life Daisy Jugadai was born circa 1955 at Haasts Bluff, Northern Territory, daughter of artists Narputta Nangala and Timmy Jugadai Tjungurrayi. The ambiguity around the year of birth is in part because Indigenous people operate using a different conception of time from non-Indigenous Australians, often estimating dates through comparisons with the occurrence of other events. The people of Papunya and Haasts Bluff, such as Daisy, speak a variety of the Pintupi language referred to as Pintupi-Luritja, a Western Desert dialect. Napaltjarri (in Western Desert dialects) or Napaljarri (in Warlpiri) is a skin name, one of sixteen used to denote the subsections or subgroups in the kinship system of central Australian Indigenous people. These names define kinship relationships that influence preferred marriage partners and may be associated with particular totems. Although they may be used as terms of address, they are not surnames in the sense used by Europeans. Thus "Daisy Jugadai" is the element of the artist's name that is specifically hers. Jugadai's childhood was spent at both Haasts Bluff and a nearby camp, Five Mile, while she was schooled at Papunya. She married Kelly Multa, and they had a daughter, Agnes. They lived on an outstation, Kungkayunti, but Daisy moved back to Haasts Bluff when Kelly died. It was not until the 1990s that she was remarried, to an Elcho Islander, after which she travelled regularly between Arnhem Land and Haasts Bluff. Jugadai died in 2008, her funeral held at Haasts Bluff, where she was born. Daisy Jugadai had an older sister, artist Molly Jugadai Napaltjarri, and another sister, Ester, who predeceased her. Art Background The contemporary Indigenous Australian art movement began in the western desert in 1971, when Indigenous men at Papunya took up painting, led by elders such as Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and assisted by teacher Geoffrey Bardon. This initiative, which used acrylic paints to create designs representing body painting and ground sculptures, rapidly spread across Indigenous communities of central Australia, particularly following the commencement of a government-sanctioned art program in central Australia in 1983. By the 1980s and 1990s, such work was being exhibited internationally. The first artists, including all of the