Emily Nampijinpa Hudson was born in Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community located 290 km north-west of Alice Springs in the NT of Australia. She attended the local school and afterward moved to Mt Allen with her family. Mt Allen is approximately 200 km north-west of Yuendumu. Emily would often visit her friends in Yuendumu and on one such occasion she met her future husband, Timothy. They were married in 1984. She later moved to Nyirripi where she and her husband now live. They have five children and one grandchild.
Emily has been painting with the Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal owned and governed art centre, since 2001. When she was young she used to watch her elder sister paint. She paints her Grandfather’s Jukurrpa stories, Yarungkanyi Jukurrpa (Mt Doreen Dreaming); and her father’s dreaming, Warlukurlangu Jukurrpa (Fire Dreaming), stories associated with her father’s and grandfather’s traditional country, its features and animals. These stories have been passed down for millennia.
Apart from painting and looking after her family, Emily also spends a lot of time hunting for traditional bush tucker, such as bush tomato, bush onions, and honey ants.
