Yakari Napaltjarri Pintupi, c.1950-2018

Yakari was born in the bush near Kiwirrikurra in Western Australia (700km west of Alice Spings) and is a member of the Pintupi people. She came out of the desert with her family in the early 1960’s. They lived at Papunya for many years before returning to Kiwirrikurra when the community was built.

She and her sisters  Parara and  Payu Napaltjarri and her brother, artist Joseph Jurra Tjapaltjarri, were the children of Anmanari Nangala and Kirindji Kuku Tjungurrayi. Parara and Payu were co-wives of artist Freddy West Tjakamarra, who was also married at one stage to artist Takariya Napaltjarri. Parara moved to Papunya with Freddy West in 1963, and died in 2003.

Yakari was the widow of Simon Tjakamarra who painted for Papunya Tula Artists from

the late 1970’s until his death in 1990. She lived and painted in the Kiwirrkura

Community, although she often travelled to Kintore as well as communities further

west such as Punmu and Jigalong in Western Australia. Yakari completed her first

paintings for Papunya Tula Artists in 1996 after starting as a group with the other

Kiwirrkura women.

 An etching 'Ngaminya', from the suite Tjukurrpa Palurukutu, Kutjupawana Palyantjanya - Same Stories, A New Way, 2009, held in the Art Gallery of NSW depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Ngaminya, just south of the Kiwirrkura community in Western Australia. The rows of parallel lines in the etching represent the tali (sandhills) in the area around Ngaminya. In ancestral times a group of women camped at this site collecting the edible berries known as kampurarrpa, or desert raisin, that grow on the small shrub Solanum centrale. These berries can be eaten straight from the bush but are sometimes ground into a paste and cooked in the coals to form a type of damper. The rocky outcrop at this site is said to have been formed from huge mounds of these berries. Upon completion of the ceremonies at Ngaminya the women continued their travels east to Wirrulnga and then on to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay).

Other works depicted  'Tali (Sand Dunes')  composed in a maplike format, with long lines across the canvas depicting the peaks and valleys of the sand dunes, and a traditional layering method derived from Pintipi sand painting.

A photographic portrait of her with a freshly hunted kangaroo taken at Mt.Leibig in 1974 by Jon Rhodes is held in the NGV collection. 

Yakari passed away in 2015.

Her work is held in public collections including  AGNSW, AGSA, Artbank, NGV