Barbara Napangarti Reid (Barbara Reid Napargardi)

(Biography courtesy of Gallery Gondwana, Alice Springs, and Aboriginal Art Online.)

Born

c.1964

Language

Ngaanyatjarra

Region

Tjukurla (Western Desert)

Barbara Napangarti Reid was born some time around 1964 in the Tjukurla region of the Gibson Desert, Western Australia. She began painting in 1987 with the Centre for Aboriginal Artists in Alice Springs.

Barbara's distinctive works depict her traditional country in the Gibson Desert—many of her paintings show the puli (rock formations) and tali (sand hills) of this country and tell women's ceremonial stories related to the formation of the natural environment around Tjukurla.

This area is dominated by expansive sand hills and rockholes containing water where bush foods are found. Also vital to Barbara's work is the telling of minyma stories (women's sacred stories) which are narratives that revolve around the role of the woman as healers and providers in Ngaanyatjarra society.

Barbara and her family currently live in Alice Springs.

 

Group Exhibitions

2000 Sand Spinifex & Salt - Leading Central Desert Painters. Japingka Gallery; Barbara Napangarti Reid. Vivien Anderson Gallery; 17th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Darwin, NT.

 

Collections

• Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin.