Antonia Napangardi Michaels, Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa, 122x76cm

The subject of this work is Lappi Lappi, a rock hole near Lake Hazlett, about 90 km northwest of Lake Mackay in Western Australia. The country belongs to Nampijinpa/Jampijinpa and Nangala/Jangala skin groups. Located in a sheltered basin, the rock hole at Lappi Lappi is a permanent source of water, and is surrounded by country rich in bush tucker. In the time of the Jukurrpa (Dreamtime) many mothers with young children would gather there because it was a safe place to stay. The rock hole at Lappi Lappi is home to a ‘warnayarra’, a rainbow serpent that travels underground between various rock holes. One day, women were gathered at the rock hole with their children, singing and dancing. When the ‘warnayarra’ heard the sound of voices, it travelled silently towards them, under the water. When it reached the edge of the rock hole, it rose out of the water and ate them all.

Antonia Napangardi Michaels was born on the 6 March 1998 in Alice Springs Hospital, the closest hospital to Nyirripi, a remote aboriginal community located approximately 420 km north-west of Alice Springs and approx. 130 km north-west of Yuendumu, in the Northern Territory of Australia. She is the daughter of Andrea Nungarrayi Wilson and Chris Japanangka Michaels and granddaughter of Alice NampijinpaHenworth, all major Warlpiri artists. Antonia went to St Mary’s School in Broome, graduating in 2012. When she finished school, she came back to Nyirripi and worked at the Learning Centre run by the Batchelor Institute, an Indigenous Tertiary Education Program, where Antonia assisted students with computer skills.

Antonia began painting with Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre located in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, in 2010 when she was 12 yrs old and again in 2014 when she was 16 yrs. Antonia continues the family tradition of artists painting her Grandmother’s Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa(Lappi Lappi Dreaming) and her father’s Janganpa Jukurrpa (Bush-tailed Possum Dreaming), stories which relate directly to her land, its features and the plants and animals that inhabit it. These stories were passed down to her by her Parents and their parents before them for millennia.  She learnt to paint first at school and then by watching all the family paint. She uses an unrestricted palette to depict her traditional iconography, at the same time developing a modern individualist style, using pattern in a variety of contexts.

Antonia is married to Maxie Jampijinpa Pollard and has one son born in 2017. When she is not painting, or working she loves to go hunting for bush tucker with family and friends.