Emma Daniel Nungarrayi Warlpiri, Luritja, Anmatyerre, c.1935-2015

A Warlpiri artist from Papunya, Daniel was born circa 1935. Her father was Yungkungpungu Japaljarri, killed during the Coniston Massacre in 1928. Her mother fled to Karrinyarra, and the children were adopted by the whole clan. 

The sister of foundational Papunya Tula artists Paddy Carroll Tjunugrrayi  (c. 1932–2002) and Don Tjungurrayi (c.1938-2022) , with whom she lived with for some time at Mt Doreen near Yuendumu, she was a respected elder with great cultural knowledge and also a well-respected dancer who danced for Prince Charles when he visited Alice Springs in 2005. Her and her brother were Traditional Owners of Karrinyarra, Central Mount Wedge and Stuart Bluff Range and led the families in their successful application for Land Rights.

She lived at Papunya (the birthplace of the desert art movement) and then Alice Springs, where she worked through the Many Hands Art Centre, a centre for artists from diverse language groups in Alice Springs, and in particular the Hermannsburg School of water colour painters. She joined Tangentyere Artists in 2012, for whom she painted  the sacred and secret law she held from the country she called Karrinyarra, until she passed away peacefully in March 2015, a deeply loved and respected community member, and artist.

She is represented in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, whose
Australian Art Department have written of her: "Her use of assured
brushstrokes, bold colour and line infill rather than the more commonly used dotted infill gives her works a sense of movement and rhythm enlivening the composition.

Daniel's gestural and energetic works are quite different from the work currently being produced b y other Warlpiri
artists and in their spontaneity hold similarities to the early works produced by the female artists of Papunya Tula in the 1990s."